China's first direct-to-home broadcasting satellite, which had been hyped as a broadcaster of digital television signals to China's rural areas with no access to cable, has failed less than 10 days after its launch, the South China Morning Post reported, citing sources familiar with the situation.
SinoSat-2, the first domestically made satellite that was to offer services directly to some 100 mln households, suffered a serious power failure and appeared beyond repair, the Hong Kong newspaper said, citing an engineer surnamed Jia at Sino Satellite Communication, the company that operates it.
'It went into orbit successfully but the solar power panel failed shortly afterwards, leaving the satellite without power,' she told the newspaper, while declining to give her full name.
'SinoSat-2 can no longer send any signals; it's gone out of operation,' the report cited another engineer at the company as saying.
The central government has so far blocked news of the satellite's failure in the mainland media, the report added.
Source: Xinhua News Agency
