LONG BEACH, Calif. - A Russian-Ukrainian rocket blasted off Friday from a floating platform on the equatorial Pacific in the Sea Launch venture's first mission since a $100 million satellite was lost during a failed liftoff last March.
The Zenit-3SL rocket took off on schedule at 3:42 p.m. PDT from a converted oil rig about 1,400 miles southeast of Hawaii. About 100 minutes later, officials confirmed success after acquiring a signal from the satellite.
''The big news here is that Sea Launch is back,'' said Will Trafton, president of the international venture that includes partners from Russia, Ukraine and the United States.
Mission controllers and other workers cheered in Russian and English at the company's home port in Long Beach and on a command ship 3 miles from the floating launch platform.
Sea Launch's fourth liftoff was a critical for the young company. In March, an ICO Global Communications satellite was destroyed when a second-stage valve failed to close because of a software problem.
With three out of four successful launches, the company said its customers will be offered better insurance rates and gain more confidence in the system.
''We've been through some adversity here lately, but we're a stronger company, a stronger team for it,'' Trafton said. ''We proved it. We're a great team with a bunch of engineers with a great a product.''
Sea Launch's rocket lofted PanAmSat Corp.'s PAS-9 communications satellite into an elliptical transfer orbit. Once in final geostationary orbit at an altitude of 23,500 miles, its coverage range will extend from California's Napa Valley to the Falkland Islands and across the Atlantic to Berlin.
Launches at the equator allow a rocket to carry more weight to a higher orbit than from other latitudes. And because the platform is surrounded by the ocean, there is little chance of anything falling on populated areas.
''The fact that they're able to launch our satellites from the equator results in longer satellite life, which we find very attractive from a financial perspective,'' said Robert Bednarek, PanAmSat's executive vice president and chief technology officer.
The company's confidence in Sea Launch was boosted after it was allowed to participate in the failure investigation of the ICO satellite.
''The opportunity to do that gave us a sense of confidence that they really understood the cause, and it was a cause that was easily corrected,'' said R. Douglas Kahn, president and chief executive officer of PanAmSat
Sea Launch's command ship and platform will now trek 3,000 miles back to home port and prepare for the launch of a communications satellite serving the Middle East in September.
PAS-9, measuring 86 feet long and 26 feet wide once fully deployed, will replace another satellite that currently provides services for television broadcasters and programmers throughout the Americas.
It also will be the permanent platform for Sky Mexico's DTH service, which beams television channels directly to homes in Mexico, northern Central America and parts of the Caribbean.
PanAmSat Corp., based in Greenwich, Conn., is a leading provider of global video and data broadcasting services via satellite. It currently has 22 spacecraft in orbit and has the world's largest commercial geostationary satellite network.
Sea Launch is a joint venture of Boeing Commercial Space Co., Russia's RSC Energia, Ukraine's KB Yuzhnoye/PO Yuzhmash, and the Anglo-Norwegian Kvaerner Group of Oslo.
---
On the Net: Sea Launch home page: http://www.sea-launch.com
PanAmSat home page: http://www.panamsat.com
