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All personal are ''all safe and accounted for,'' says Southern California-based space firm

LONG BEACH- 01/31/07 – Southern California-based Sea Launch has reported that one of its rockets has exploded on its floating launch pad. The rocket – a Zenit-3SL – was scheduled to put a Boeing-made, 13,000 lb., NSS-8 satellite into geosynchronous orbit above the Equator for Netherlands-based SES New Skies.

Telephone calls to Sea Launch’s offices in Long Beach were directed to an automated message stating that “all personnel at the launch site are safe and accounted for” and that the company “will establish a 'Failure Review Oversight Board' to determine the root cause of this ‘anomaly’.”

(See video of the incident at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMG2SBwIcrM )

The NSS-8 was assembled at the Boeing Satellite Development Center in El Segundo, California and was designed to provide coverage to two-thirds of the world’s population, serving countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, and Asia.

The satellite was designed for a 15-year lifespan, and have 18 kilowatts of total power at the beginning of life on orbit.

The launch was the first mission for SES New Skies.  

Sea Launch’s Odyssey floating launch platform and the Sea Launch Commander command vessel left for the equatorial launch site on January 25 and began a 72-hour preparatory launch countdown this past Monday.
 
Sea Launch is a multi-national limited liability corporation with headquarters and homeport at the Port of Long Beach.

The company is owned by Seattle-based Boeing; Russia’s RSC-Energia; Aker ASA of Oslo, Norway; and Ukraine-based SDO Yuzhnoye/PO Yuzhmash.

Financing for the venture is provided by these companies and through debt financing arranged by Chase Manhattan Bank in New York.

Sea Launch’s last operation was the successful launch last October of a XM-4 satellite which was sent into orbit atop a Zenit-3SL, the same type of rocket involved in today’s “anomaly.”

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