One Billion Customers - James McGregor [92]
Hughes’s investigation of the Optus B2 failure determined that the problem was a design flaw in the nose cone that protected the satellite. It had split open. That finding caused lots of problems. Chinese officials denied any responsibility. They couldn’t have their Communist Party bosses thinking that they were building shoddy rockets. It was a matter of money, too. China had insured the rocket and Hughes had insured the satellite. With rockets and satellites running $100 million or so each, the insurance companies didn’t want their clients blamed. And with satellites waiting in line for launch dates, China wanted to protect its cash cow.
After much finger-pointing, Hughes agreed in May to sign a memo stating that “there is no design or manufacturing or integration flaw in the launch vehicle or the fairing…” Once that face-saving document was signed, the Chinese launch company, Great Wall Industry Corporation, went ahead to fix the nose cone, as Hughes suggested, by using stronger rivets. The U.S. Air Force colonel who had been monitoring the investigation approved in writing the transfer of a simplified and sanitized version of Hughes’s failure analysis to the Chinese. In August 1994, Hughes’s Optus B3 satellite was successfully launched in China.
The success was short-lived. In January 1995, a Chinese Long March rocket launching Hughes’s Apstar 2 satellite exploded fifty seconds after liftoff. Instrumentation showed once again that the nose cone had failed. Great Wall hadn’t done the full modification that Hughes had recommended. And, once again, the Chinese refused to accept Hughes’s conclusion. Great Wall was desperate to cover up any flaws in the Long March rocket for fear that insurance companies would refuse to underwrite future launches. In the end, both sides would blame wind shear for the accident. It had been windy that day, and Hughes engineers were willing to stipulate that the nose cone could work on a calm day. The Chinese placed partial blame on the coupling between the rocket and the satellite so that both sides could share responsibility.
Chinese and Hughes Satellite officials issued a joint press release in July 1995, citing “two possible causes for the failure.” Hughes said high winds had affected the nose cone and the Chinese cited problems with the coupling between the rocket and the satellite. After getting approval from the Commerce Department, Hughes released to the Chinese rocket makers its own investigation blaming the nose cone.
Within months of that compromise a Long March rocket launching a Loral Space Systems satellite tipped over as it was being launched. It flew sideways into a nearby hillside, destroying a farm village and killing or injuring more than one hundred peasants. The insurance industry went ballistic. Political compromises and face-saving explanations wouldn’t cut it. If Loral and Great Wall couldn’t pinpoint the cause, and fix it, insurers would not only refuse to pay claims, they would quit backing Chinese launches. The Chinese quickly explained that their investigation had determined that a broken wire in the guidance system had caused the failure, but insurance executives didn’t buy it. They wanted an independent investigation. Great Wall asked Hughes and Loral to lead the investigation. The team’s report concluded that flaws in the electronic flight control system caused the crash. The committee made general recommendations for improved design, quality control, and launch safety procedures for the Chinese rocket. A meeting with Great Wall was scheduled for June to refine details of the recommendations.
Political Problems
Suddenly Hughes and Loral found themselves trapped in a fierce bureaucratic battle pitting the Pentagon and the State Department against the Commerce Department. The battle had started three years earlier when President Clinton transferred the State Department’s authority for export controls on some commercial satellites