An electrical failure in the "inertial platform" of a Long March 3B booster caused it to crash and explode seconds after launch in February, according to a final report released this month.
    "There was no electric current output from the power module in the servo-loop on the follow-up frame of the inertia platform," explained a spokesperson for the China Great Wall industrial Corporation, which handles launches of the Long March series of boosters.
    The failure of the rocket's guidance system caused it to turn over 180 degrees and smash into the ground, triggering a massive explosion. The crash destroyed its payload, a U.S.-built communications satellite.
    The explosion also killed six people according to Chinese reports, but video taken by an Israeli engineer of a nearby village the day after the explosion showed extensive damage and implied a much larger death toll.
    The failed launch was the first for the Long March 3B, an improved version of the 3A capable of launching much heavier payloads. No launches of the 3B variant are scheduled until early next year. China has used the 3 and 3A versions in two launches since the crash, with only one of the launches considered a success.

Despite threatening weather from two hurricanes, an Atlas 2A and a Delta rocket each successfully launched satellites into orbit within four days of each other from facilities at Cape Canaveral.
    A Lockheed Martin Atlas 2A went first, launching a communications satellite into geosynchronous orbit on September 8. The GE-1 satellite, built by Lockheed Martin for GE Americom, will be used primarily by NBC, along with the U.S. government and regional television networks.
    The satellite represents a new generation of spacecraft, with more broadcasting power and a long lifetime. "It's more than just evolutionary," GE Americom vice president Walter Braun told the newspaper Florida Today. "It's a great leap forward."
    Four days later, in the early morning hours of September 12, a Delta booster carried a military GPS satellite into orbit. The Navstar satellite will replace older GPS spacecraft already in orbit.
    The Delta launch was dedicated to all American POWs and MIAs, and carried the logo of the American Ex-POW Association. Military officials hope GPS systems can help locate soldiers in the field, as they did last year to locate pilot Scott O'Grady, whose plane was downed over Bosnia.
    No more unmanned launches are scheduled for the Cape until November 6, when a Delta rocket will launch the Mars Global Surveyor.

An Ariane rocket placed an American communications satellite into orbit on September 10, while a Russian Proton rocket launched an American-built communications satellite four days earlier.
    The Ariane 42P lifted off at 8:00pm EDT September 10 (0000 GMT September 11) from its launch facility in Kourou, French Guiana. It carried ECHOSTAR II, a communications satellite built by Lockheed Martin for Colorado-based Echostar Communications.
    Echostar had planned to use the Chinese Long March booster for its satellite, but canceled its order in favor of Ariane after the crash and explosion of a Long March 3B in February. Echostar will use the satellite for direct TV broadcasts over the U.S.
    On September 6, a Proton rocket launched the INMARSAT 3 satellite from its launch facility at Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The INMARSAT satellite, built by Lockheed Martin with a communications payload by Matra Marconi Space, will be used by the International Maritime Satellite Organization.
    The Proton launch is the second in a series of 20 commercial launched planned until the year 2000 under a U.S.-backed joint venture called International Launch Services (ILS). The first ILS-sponsored launch was in April, when a Proton carries the European Astra-1F communications satellite into orbit.