DirecTV satellite
lifts off in PacificThe Sea Launch joint venture sends
By Peter Robison
its first commercial payload into orbit
Bloomberg NewsSEATTLE -- Boeing Co., the world's biggest aerospace company, said its Sea Launch joint venture successfully lofted the first commercial payload into space from a floating ocean platform.
A Ukrainian Zenit rocket carrying a DirecTV satellite built by Hughes Space and Communications streaked into orbit late Saturday from the Sea Launch platform, a converted oil rig in the Pacific Ocean about 1,400 miles south of Hawaii. Launching near the equator makes it easier to take advantage of the Earth's rotational speed and catapult satellites into the atmosphere.
The rocket's systems performed as planned during the takeoff and flight and the satellite was placed in orbit 62 minutes after takeoff, Boeing said on a recorded message.
The success will help build credibility among customers for the relatively untested Sea Launch platform, which was conceived in 1993 and lofted its first dummy payload in March. A string of failures of other rockets made by Boeing and rival Lockheed Martin Corp. during the past year had shaken confidence in the two largest U.S. aerospace companies.
The launch also could ease pressure on Boeing to justify its investment in the Sea Launch project. Boeing's chief financial officer, Deborah Hopkins, disclosed in a report in February that 25 percent of the $13 billion Boeing has spent on various product lines won't earn a meaningful return.
Analysts have speculated some of its space businesses, with high potential yet also high costs, could be among those programs. Boeing hasn't said what it spent on Sea Launch, though analysts estimate it's invested more than $500 million along with partners in Russia, Ukraine and Norway.
Sea Launch executives maintain it can carve out an important niche in the market for launch services, which was worth $2.9 billion in 1998, according to a C.E. Unterberg, Towbin report.
The ocean-based platform offers launch customers another option as booming demand for new satellite-based television and telephone services clogs existing launch facilities in Florida, Kazakhstan and French Guiana. Saturday's launch was among 19 confirmed orders for Sea Launch, which charges between $70 million and $90 million for each launch.
The Ukrainian rocket is considered the venture's riskiest component. A Zenit-2 exploded last September, destroying 12 satellites for Globalstar Telecommunications Ltd. and delaying the start of that company's global telecommunications system. The Zenit-2's success rate of about 74 percent is the lowest of any rocket, according to the Unterberg, Towbin report.
