The US Department of Defense has confirmed that Hughes Space and Communications inadvertently aided China's missile and satellite programmes during an investigation into the failure of a Long March 2E launcher attempting to orbit the Hughes built ApStar 2 satellite in 1995.
The Pentagon says that Hughes gave China information "potentially damaging to US national security" during the investigation into the launch failure at T+52s.
Both parties blamed each other for the failure. It is suspected that the Hughes HS-601 satellite exploded inside the Long March 2E's payload shroud.
Video coverage of the incident seems to confirm this, although Hughes has never endorsed this possibility officially.
The disagreement between the two parties over the cause of the accident led to a comprehensive study which was so detailed that it may have provided Chinese officials with enough data to help the development of launcher technology that could have been translated into the missile arena.
The controversy has also led to a change of export controls on commercial satellites, with licensing being switched from Department of Commerce to the Department of State - a move putting satellites on the same strictly controlled "munitions list" as cruise missiles.
Source: Flight International
