Monday, 3 November 2008
China playing catch-up in global satellite arena
China will take as long as 10 years to compete as a major player in the commercial satellite launch industry despite recent milestone achievements in its space programme, according to an executive of the world’s largest company that sends commercial satellites into space.
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China playing catch-up in global satellite arena
Charlotte So
3 November 2008
China will take as long as 10 years to compete as a major player in the commercial satellite launch industry despite recent milestone achievements in its space programme, according to an executive of the world’s largest company that sends commercial satellites into space.
France, Russia and Ukraine have so long dominated the commercial satellite launch business, and China and Japan are now trying to break into the sector as viable competitors to the top three.
However, a decade-long sanction on exports of satellite technology from the United States to China has presented the mainland space programme with major challenges.
“About 95 per cent of finished satellites or satellite components originate in the US,” said Philip Balaam, the regional sales and marketing director of Arianespace, the largest launcher of commercial satellites.
In 1998, former US president Bill Clinton’s administration passed the National Defense Authorization Act followed by a report in the same year that said China’s technology acquisitions including, but not limited to, satellite launches, harmed US national security.
But the mainland has not been completely cut out of the market. Last week, a communications satellite built with Chinese technology was launched by Venezuela. In May last year, a Chinese-made satellite was launched by Nigeria.
Meanwhile, domestic launches continued at a rapid pace and the launch pad in Xichang, Sichuan, had already been fully booked for domestic satellites, a mainland official said.
The space port was reserved only for countries that were friendly to China such as oil-rich Venezuela and Nigeria, the official said.
“China’s space programme is very impressive but at the moment is more targeted towards China’s own needs instead of for commercial satellite launches,” said Mr Balaam.
The entry barrier for the commercial satellite launch business was very high, and clients would be very demanding on issues of performance and reliability, he said.
“A commercial client’s requirements would be very different from the requirements set by a government, since a satellite costs on average between US$300 million and US$400 million,” he said, adding that failures would mean years of delays.
In view of the global financial crisis, the international satellite market was likely to shrink 20 to 25 per cent next year, given that tightening credit conditions would derail satellite programmes, Mr Balaam forecast.
Founded in 1980, Arianespace has launched more than 261 payloads from its spaceport in French Guiana. It deploys three types of rockets including Ariane, Soyuz and Vega to carry heavy-lift to lightweight payloads.
The company claims to be the only satellite provider able to launch two payloads in one launch.
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