Indonesia loses its best satellite and China lowers its credibility in space technology

One of the most powerful Chinese space launchers has failed during its flight into space and has destroyed the advanced and huge Indonesian communications satellite that was travelling on top of it.

The launch of the Long-Range 3B rocket took place from the Xichang space base - in the southwestern province of Sichuan - on April 9, the same day that the Soyuz rocket lifted off from the Russian Baikonur Cosmodrome, carrying a new crew to the International Space Station; two Russian cosmonauts and an American astronaut, who are now safe and sound on board the orbital complex.

Long March 3B took off successfully with the help of the four main accelerator rockets. The engines of the first two stages worked as planned and came off within a few minutes of the flight.

But when the engines of the third and final stage were ignited, a sudden and fatal anomaly occurred, causing the structures to break and the Indonesian satellite Palapa-N1 - renamed Nusantara 2 - to be destroyed, the only object on top of the rocket and the reason for the space mission.

The task of the Chinese launcher was to place Nusantara 2, owned by Palapa Satelit Nusantara Sejahtera, a joint venture between telecommunications companies Indosat Ooredoo and Pasifik Satelit Nusantara, into an orbit 36,000 kilometres from Earth. But it could not be.
 

The 5.55-tonne satellite was to be the spearhead for accelerating the use of broadband technologies among Indonesian society, and thus turning the country into the largest digital state in Southeast Asia, which will have to wait for the replacement of the destroyed satellite.

Neighbours on the island of Guam, in the western Pacific Ocean and some 4,700 kilometres from the Xichang space base, saw orange objects moving in the night sky. The United States Civil Defence of the Commonwealth was informed and attributed the sighting to the burning remains of the Chinese rocket and satellite, but considered that they did not pose a "direct threat" to the people of Guam or to the United States Air Force stationed at Andersen Air Force Base.

The contract between the manager of the purchasing company, Johanes Indri Triatmodjo, and the president of the Great Wall of China Industrial Corporation, Yin Liming, was signed in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, on May 17, 2017, in the presence of the Indonesian Minister of Informatics and Communications, Rudiantara, and high authorities of his department.

This included the construction and placing in orbit of the satellite, the associated technologies, the ground segments that have been raised in the towns of Medan and Surabaya, the insurance premium and the financing of the entire package.

Johanes Indri Triatmodjo has downplayed the importance of the disaster as "the spacecraft, its launch and the operational risks are all covered". However, the Jakarta government's plans for Nusantara 2 are unlikely to be fulfilled. 

Nusantara 2 was to have occupied the 113° East orbital position to replace the Palapa-D satellite, which was placed in orbit on 31 August 2009, also by a Long-Range 3B rocket, which coincidentally also had an anomaly.
 

Fortunately, on that occasion, the failure was not as serious as it is now. Almost 11 years ago, the rocket released the satellite at a lower altitude than required, requiring it to reach its final orbit by repeatedly firing its own thrusters, reducing its service period from 15 to 11 years. Hence the importance of bringing Nusantara 2 into service as soon as possible, which will no longer be possible as the construction of a new platform will take at least two years.

Nusantara 2 satellite had been built by the China Academy of Space Technology (CASC) on the basis of a DFH-4E satellite platform similar to the VeneSat-1 manufactured for Venezuela - and lost two weeks ago - but in a more advanced version.

Equipped with several dozen C-band transponders and a high-performance 9.5 Gbps Ku-band payload, it had been designed to provide voice, data, television and Internet communications services to the nearly 300 million inhabitants of the world's fourth most populous country, as well as to neighbouring nations, including Australia, for 15 years. 
 

The consequences of rocket and satellite failures will have a direct impact on the Chinese space industry, which will be going through a period of review of its plans and technologies, making it difficult to meet its target of 40 space launches by 2020.

In less than 30 days, the VeneSat 1 satellite failed and two disastrous launches took place, precisely on two of the rockets on which Chinese President Xi Jinping and his advisors had placed most confidence, Long-Range 3B and 7A.

Launch failures have occurred in two of the last three space flights, raising serious doubts about the efficiency of the measures implemented by the Chinese space industry to deal with COVID-19 coronavirus infections. In addition, only one failure had occurred since mid-2017, and now, in less than a month, two absolute disasters 
 

The accident with the Long-Range 3B on 9 April has surprised the entire international space community as it had proved to be a very reliable launcher up until then. The previous failure had occurred on 16 March 2020. That day was the launch from the Wenchang space centre of the new Long March rocket 7A which destroyed the military satellite XJY-6.

It was a mysterious platform that was only known to be a "new technology" device and that had to be placed at an altitude of 36,000 kilometres, from which it is clear that it was a platform linked to the communications field. The first stage worked as planned, but after it was separated from the second stage there was a failure that led to an explosion and everything fell apart.
 

In Indonesia, the joint venture has the Nusantara 1, launched in February 2019. Separately, each of the operators also has communications platforms. Indosat operates the Palapa C2 (launched in May 1999) and Palapa D (in orbit since August 2009) satellites, while PSN has assigned the French-Italian company Thales Alenia Space to build Satria, scheduled for 2022.