Status available at link.
Posted on 01/30/2007 3:56:18 PM PST by cabojoe
A Sea Launch Zenit 3SL rocket was destroyed at liftoff today, disappearing in a massive fireball that enveloped its floating launch platform in the Pacific Ocean. Lost in the explosion was the commercial NSS 8 telecommunications satellite.
Status available at link.
Holy Pelosi!
Ooops! Back to the drawing board.
Bummer
Today's flight would have been the 24th for Sea Launch since debuting in 1999. This is the second total failure for the Zenit 3SL vehicle configuration.
Hmmmmmm.... fuel leak?
Is this a private company or government run operation?
Private I believe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Launch
See #5.
Goog picture for a ZOT.
0015 GMT (7:15 p.m. EST Tues.)
A statement has been issued by the customer of today's failed launch, SES NEW SKIES of The Hague, Netherlands.
"SES NEW SKIES, an SES company regrets to announce the failure of the launch of NSS 8, the sixth satellite in the SES NEW SKIES fleet, onboard a Zenith 3SL launch vehicle, and the resulting total loss of the satellite.
"SES NEW SKIES is currently not in a position to comment on the possible causes of the mission failure and is awaiting the results of the official investigation which is in the process of being installed.
"NSS 8 was built by Boeing, with launch services from the Odyssey Platform in the equatorial Pacific provided by Sea Launch. The spacecraft was intended to operate at SES NEW SKIES orbital position of 57 degrees East to replace the existing NSS 703 satellite.
"The launch failure of NSS 8 means that NSS 703 will now stay at 57 degrees East in order to continue to serve existing customers until at least 2009.
"SES NEW SKIES has already initiated the construction of NSS 9 for launch in 2009 into the Pacific Ocean Region. NSS 9 is intended to free up NSS 5 which in turn will then be free to relocate to 57 degrees to replace NSS 703.
"The NSS 8 launch failure is thus not expected to have an impact on existing customers or revenues."
Yikes!
Gonna be interesting to see how many lawyers it takes to sort out the liability on THIS one!
Old news... I already read the book.
-PJ
This must have been just east of Jarvis Island(154 deg W). Years ago I thought that would be ideal site for an EMSL cannon, esp the quenched superconducting ring design.
It would be a cannon 300' to 500' long at a 45 deg angle pointing east. With 20 kg projectiles at say one/10 sec in continuous firing mode, that's 172,800 kg/day reaching LEO. That's about 19 shuttle loads at 20,000#/payload.
One pound in LEO is worth(mv^2/2 + mgh)4 KWH, or about 40 cents at 10 cents/KWH. That's cheaper than 39 cents/oz postage(16:1). At a 10% system efficiency that's $4/#, vs $20,000/# to LEO on the shuttle.
The recent railgun demo for the navy shows what's possible with a superconducting cannon. Too bad boeing has to lose so many millions on the CHEMICAL ROCKET when for the same money they could be shooting BULLETS into LEO for a tiny fraction of the energy cost. Ah well, archaic thinking and VESTED INTERESTS....
Twasn't an anomaly it was projectile dysfunction.
It's not patented, so feel free to use it! :)
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