than half of what a U.S. launch company would charge. Optus B1 Primary mission location: 160° east Current location: Sent to Junk orbit Launch date: 13 August 1992 Beacon frequencies: 12.748.000 H / 12.749.000 H Optus B1 was moved to Junk orbit in May 2008. Failures Satellite Control Processor On 21 May 2005 services were temporarily lost when the Primary Satellite Control Processor failed. The satellite was switched to use the Backup SCP in order to restore services. Thereafter the satellite continued to operate from the Backup SCP. March 2006 Positioning Failure At 06:52 UTC on 30 March 2006, a routine repositioning manoeuvre failed, resulting in loss of pointing control of the satellite. Although communication with the satellite was not lost, transmission services provided by the satellite failed due to its incorrect positioning. Services were progressively restored between 18:00 and 20:00 UTC. Local time at the time of the start of the outage ranged from 14:52 AWST to 18:52 NZST, a peak time for listeners and viewers of the radio and television broadcast and subscription services provided directly or indirectly by the satellite. Optus B2 Launch Date: 21 December 1992 The Long March 2E rocket carrying Optus B2 experienced a collapse of the payload fairing, destroying the satellite. The rocket continued functioning and delivered the debris into low-earth orbit. The cause of the failure could not be determined at the time. However, the Long March 2E experienced the same payload fairing collapse when launching Apstar 2 in 1995. Based on instrumentation added to the satellite, Hughes determined that the failure was caused by aerodynamic forces and wind shear. The information provided by Hughes caused great political controversy in the United States, which subsequently banned U.S. satellites from being launched on Chinese rockets. Optus B3 Primary mission locations: 156° east (from initial launch until establishment of Optus C1), 152° east (until establishment of Optus D2) Current location: 164° east inclined(as at 2008-02-17) Launch Date: 27 August 1994 Optus B3 was launched as a replacement for Optus B2. After the fairing failure that destroyed Optus B2, Hughes recommended reinforcement of the fairing. The Chinese chose not to follow the recommendations and instead added more rivets. The launch of Optus B3 was successful, but the next launch of the Long March 2E experienced another fairing failure and destroyed the Apstar 2 satellite. This satellite is owned by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and