SJMercury. 'A running start' System to be tested this month to launch satellites into orbit from the equator. Ocean launches promise improved performance
mercurycenter.com
Published Thursday, March 11, 1999, in the San Jose Mercury News
Mercury News Wire Services
LONG BEACH -- The first oceangoing mobile space port ever
will send a test satellite into space late this month, in a
demonstration important to the telecommunications industry.
The test launch will provide ''the proof of the system,'' Sea
Launch Co. company President Allen B. Ashby said Wednesday,
during a news conference at the multinational business venture's
home port of Long Beach.
The self-propelled platform and accompanying command ship
should head out into the Pacific by Friday, officials said. If things
go as planned, a Ukrainian- and Russian-built rocket will carry a
10,000-pound dummy version of a telecommunications satellite
into space on March 26 from equatorial waters about 1,400 miles
south of Hawaii.
If successful, Sea Launch will give communications and space
companies greater speed and flexibility in launching satellites by
eliminating the months, and even years, of waiting to use
government facilities.
In addition, launches at the equator can use the Earth's faster spin
at the equator ''to get a running start on our orbit,'' Ashby said,
and that means a rocket can carry a payload as much as 30
percent heavier than if it were launched elsewhere.
The improved performance is possible because of Earth's
eastward spin. At the north and south poles, the rotational speed
is zero. As the distance from each pole increases, the rotational
speed increases until, at the equator, the surface of the Earth is
moving at more than 1,000 mph. In addition, space vehicles fired
from the equator travel shorter distances into orbit, so less fuel is
required.
Sea Launch expects its first commercial satellite launch in August
or September and eventually hopes for six to 12 lift-offs a year,
Ashby said. The company has contracts so far for 16 launches,
with satellite maker Hughes Space and Communications
International of Los Angeles a major customer.
The goal is a piece of a telecommunications satellite market that is
expected to reach $50 billion by year end. Although it may launch
science satellites as well, loan guarantees with the World Bank
prohibit Sea Launch from making military launches, Ashby said.
Sea Launch, a Cayman Islands-based international partnership
that is 40 percent owned by a Boeing Co. subsidiary, has staked
more than $500 million on the project.
The going price for satellite launches is about $55 million to $60
million, said Paul Nisbet, an aerospace analyst with JSA
Research in Newport, R.I. Ashby said Sea Launch expects its
prices to be competitive.
Members of the consortium include RSC Energia, the Russian
rocket maker that helped launch Sputnik in 1957 and land the
first national flag on the moon; Ukrainian rocket maker KB
Yuzhnoye/PO Yuzhmash, whose plants made nuclear warheads;
Kvaerner Maritime, of Norway, Europe's largest shipbuilder; and
Boeing Co., the Seattle-based aerospace giant.
Last fall, Boeing agreed to pay a $10 million fine over allegations
it disclosed sensitive American technology secrets to its foreign
partners in the project. A federal grand jury in Seattle reportedly
also is examining the case, but that is not expected to delay the
launch, Ashby said.
Everything about the venture is gigantic. Each 200-foot-tall
Zenit-3SL rocket will hold 1 million pounds of kerosene and
liquid oxygen fuel and can handle some of the largest satellites in
the world, Ashby said.
The launch pad, a converted oil rig called the Odyssey, is 436
feet long and 220 feet wide. It resembles a complex of steel
buildings perched atop 10 grain silos. The columns can be filled
with 15 tons of water to partially submerge the platform,
stabilizing it even in heavy seas.
A 660-foot-long vessel called the Sea Launch Commander will
be the rocket assembly site and will provide mission control
during the remotely controlled fueling and liftoff.
There have been military launches from submarines but never a
commercial sea launch attempt on this scale, analysts said. ''The
difference between an idea and a project is a lot of money from
powerful companies,'' said Bohdan Bejmuk, vice president of Sea
Launch. ''It was a bold move, it was audacious.''
|
