China's Sinosat confirms failure of SinoSat-2

BEIJING, Nov 28 (Reuters) A Chinese communications and broadcast satellite has failed about a month into orbit due to its inability to deploy solar panels and communications antennae, Sino Satellite Communications Co Ltd said today.

The SinoSat-2 satellite has ''unfortunately suffered serious technical anomaly,'' according to a statement on the company's Web site.

''The spacecraft is thus unable to be put into broadcasting and telecommunications services,'' it said.

The satellite, launched on October 29 from the southwestern province of Sichuan, was designed to serve live television signals and digital broadband multimedia systems in China, Macau and Taiwan.

Sinosat said the satellite was still in orbit and otherwise functioning normally.

China's Xinhua news agency said at the time of the SinoSat-2 launch that it would help the country improve the capacity and reliability of its information and live television broadcasts.

But a China-watching group, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, said earlier this month that China could lose 12.7 billion dollar of potential revenue from the international market over the next five years if the satellite, which cost 2 billion yuan, failed.

The company, which is China's main satellite manufacturer, said it is set to launch another television satellite, SinoSat-3, in the first half of next year.

REUTERS SP SSC1300