Word: loralic
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...companies, Bush continued to approve still more launches even after sanctions were imposed for the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, and when Clinton came in eager to make trade a centerpiece of foreign policy, Big Business worked him to go further, faster. According to the report, the chiefs of Hughes and Loral, who together won five licenses, dropped by the White House, sat on advisory panels and lobbied hard for the Administration to move the whole licensing procedure to Commerce, which the White House pretty much...
...result: after Hughes and Loral lost three satellites when the Long March rockets boosting them into space blew up, the Cox report says, they "acted without the legally required license" as they worked out the trouble with the Chinese. In the process, says the report, they gave away information on guidance systems that could boost the accuracy of Chinese ballistic missiles. Both Hughes and Loral deny they violated export-control law or transferred sensitive information. Congress reacted last winter by ordering the licensing process back to State...
...launch of Loral's Intelsat 708 communications satellite in Sichuan province in February 1996 was a fiery disaster. The Chinese-made Long March rocket that was supposed to propel the American satellite into space crashed into a hillside 22 sec. after lift-off and exploded, raining flaming rocket fuel and red-hot shards of the 3-ton satellite on a nearby village. China initially said six villagers choked or burned to death, and later upped the number to 56, but U.S. estimates put the fatalities closer...
...Loral's ill-fated launch may also have caused collateral damage of a different kind. In the wake of the crash, a committee of Western aerospace experts, headed by a top Loral official, was tapped to investigate. It drew up a preliminary report on specific reasons the Long March may have failed--and faxed it over to the Chinese. This technical feedback, a federal investigation concluded, may have helped China improve the accuracy of its rocket and missile programs. The Defense Department found that Loral and Hughes, another satellite company on the committee, had engaged in a "serious export-control...
...almost nothing to alert Wah Lim, according to the report. On May 7, 1996, without informing State, Lim assistant Nick Yen faxed the panel's draft conclusions to scientists in Beijing. Soon after, the rockets' reliability improved dramatically. State and Defense Department officials found out about the Loral fax, went ballistic and called in the Justice Department. Loral executives insist the fax was a clerical error, but federal and congressional investigators want answers: Did Loral vips deliberately choose not to know too much so China could get what it wanted...