Ukraine says Sea Launch satellite test set for
March 14
By Olena Horodetska
KIEV (Reuters) - The Boeing-led Sea Launch consortium will hold its delayed
first demonstration satellite launch on March 14, and sees commercial launches
beginning shortly after, a project participant said Friday.
"Ukrainian producers have already assembled six Zenit-type booster rockets,
and the first two have already been delivered," Olexander Serdyuk, a
department head at Ukraine's National Space Agency, told a news conference.
Sea Launch aims to specialize in the commercial launches of
telecommunications satellites off sea platforms, a less expensive method than
land launching sites. Ukrainian officials have said the trial will take place near
California.
The consortium has already received orders for 18 launches, giving it enough
work for the next two years, Serdyuk said. The first commercial launch is
expected in late March or early April, and there will likely be three this year, he
said. He did not give financial details.
The consortium originally expected to stage the demonstration last November,
but was delayed by official concerns in the United States that Boeing could
transfer military technology to its Russian and Ukrainian partners.
Boeing holds 40 percent of the consortium and Russia's space company
RSC-Energia 25 percent, while Kvaerner of Norway has 20 percent and
Ukraine's KB Yuzhnoye and PO Yuzhmash, once part of the Soviet Union's
largest nuclear missile producer, have the remaining 15 percent.
Apart from the technology issue, the failed launch of 12 communications
satellites by the Globalstart international consortium in September last year
raised doubts about the reliability of the Ukrainian-made Zenit rockets.
Ukrainian officials have said a computer malfunction was responsible for the
failure.
Yuzhnoye and Yuzhmash have already attracted a 10-year, $100 million loan
from U.S. bank Chase Manhattan and Boeing to build booster rockets.
Serdyuk said he was hoping Sea Launch would help revive Ukraine's
once-powerful space industry, adding that the Space Agency was negotiating
several other contracts with foreign partners. He declined to give further
details. |
