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Engine Failure Causes Sea Launch Explosion |
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MOSCOW, Russia, March 15, 2007/Satnews Daily/ ― Roscosmos, the Russian federal space agency, said the destruction of a Sea Launch Zenit-3SL last January 30 was caused by engine failure.
A massive explosion at a Pacific Ocean launch site destroyed the SES New Skies NSS 8 satellite and damaged the unmanned Odyssey launch platform. An intergovernmental Russian commission consisting of representatives from the Ukrainian and Russian space organizations and the developers of Zenit-3SL established that the engine failed after a metal particle accidentally entered the engine's pump. The commission has proposed recommendations whose implementation will provide for the continued use of Zenit-3SL.
Viktor Remishevsky, Roscosmos deputy head, said launches from the Sea Launch platform would resume this year. Established in 1995, the Sea Launch consortium is owned by the Boeing Company, Kvaerner ASA of Oslo, Norway, SDO Yuzhnoye/PO Yuzhmash of the Ukraine and RSC-Energia of Moscow.
The company launches its vehicles from the equator, which allows rockets to carry heavier payloads than they could from other locations due to the physics of the Earth's rotation.
The January 30 failure was the second total failure for the Zenit-3SL. The first occurred on March 12, 2000 during Sea Launch's third mission when a mis-configured valve caused a pressure loss in the second stage. The launcher was unable to reach orbit and fell back to Earth, destroying an ICO mobile communications satellite.
NSS-8 was a high-powered, state-of-the-art, Ku- and C-band satellite to have been located at 57º East over the Indian Ocean. It was to provide coverage of Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Indian sub-continent and Asia, with the intention to replace NSS-703 and bring expanded power and coverage at this optimum and well-established orbital location. Roscosmos also announced that launches of foreign commercial satellites on the Dnepr carrier rocket from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan will resume on March 27 after a gap caused by a July 2006 accident. Dnepr is set to launch satellites for Egypt, Saudi Arabia and a number of other countries.
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