China Rocket Crashes To Earth -- Fatalities Reported In Space- Program Setback

BEIJING - The explosion of another Chinese rocket - which destroyed a television satellite and caused an unconfirmed number of casualties - raised new questions today about the reliability of China's commercial satellite launch program.

Hong Kong radio said four people were killed and dozens injured in the explosion, but Zhang Lihui, a spokeswoman for the government aerospace agency, said there were no deaths.

The newly developed Long March 3B rocket carrying the Intelsat Inc. satellite veered toward the ground and exploded moments after liftoff at 3:01 a.m. (2:01 p.m. EST yesterday), television footage showed.

The force of the blast blew away roofs and knocked out windows and doors at a military base near the Xichang Launch Center in remote southwestern Sichuan province, a military official said, requesting anonymity.

He said two soldiers were slightly injured and medics were sent to the scene.

It was the second explosion in China's commercial satellite launching industry in just over a year. In January 1995, a Long March 2E rocket exploded minutes after launch, killing six people and injuring 23. A Long March 2E also exploded in 1992.

The latest explosion "puts another big question mark over the overall reliability of China's launch systems," said Brian Jeffries, editor of the Asia-Pacific Space Report in Hong Kong.

China has aggressively promoted its commercial satellite launching industry, offering low prices and flexible terms. Although current launch prices are not known, China put its first satellite into space for a foreign customer, AsiaSat1 in 1990, for $30 million, about half the amount Western competitors charged at the time.

The state-run Xinhua News Agency, in a brief report, said only that the Chinese-made rocket failed after ignition.

"This accident should not adversely effect China's cooperation with other countries, because the cause of the accident is still under investigation," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Shen Guofang.

Chinese authorities cut video transmission just after the rocket started to plummet. Chinese TV reports later said nothing about the explosion.

The Long March 3B, China's newest and most advanced rocket, was being launched for the first time after three years of tests. The 180-foot rocket was capable of carrying a five-ton payload, earlier newspaper reports said.

The Intelsat 708 aboard the rocket was to provide signals for direct satellite-to-ground television for South and Central America, said Llennel Evangelista, an Intelsat spokesman in Washington.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., the Australian media conglomerate, said it had leased space on the satellite as part of a venture to distribute television programs throughout Latin America. But it said in a statement the crash will not affect its original plans to begin the service this May.

Evangelista said this was the first time Intelsat, a Washington-based 122-country communication-services consortium, had used a Chinese launch rocket. He said Intelsat had contracted with China for two more launches.

China plans to launch more than 30 commercial satellites by 2000.