But there are setbacks in China’s rise.

A major Chinese satellite has failed barely 10 days after launch. The SinoSat-2 direct-to-home satellite was to transmit signals directly to 100 million people in rural areas with no access to cable.

It was a domestically made satellite. According to press reports and an outside monitor, the satellite’s solar power panel failed to unfold Nov. 7 after it reached orbit, dooming it.

“SinoSat-2 can no longer send any signals; it's gone out of operation,” an engineer at Sino Satellite Communication, the company that operates the satellite, told the South China Morning Post.

The Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said an “abnormality” in operation was detected nine days after the satellite was sent into orbit from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in Sichuan province.

The center said China could lose $12.7 billion of potential revenue over the next five years if the satellite indeed fails.