Burn-through Blamed in China Long March Mishap

摘要

China's Long March 3A series of rockets is expected to return to flight before the end of this year following the conclusion of a state-run board of inquiry into the Aug. 31 failure of the vehicle's upper stage, the vehicle's operator said Nov. 19.rnThe investigation into the underperfor-mance of one of two upper-stage engines during the flight, which placed Indonesia's Palapa-D satellite into a useless orbit, concluded that failure was caused by a burn-through of the engine's gas generator.