Sea Launch Success

After the spectacular failure of the last go-round, Kyle writes: "The commercial venture Sea Launch has successfully launched another communications satellite into geosynchronous orbit, restoring confidence in the floating launch system after a launch failure earlier this year. The video Webcast was entertaining, complete with hints that they threw a pretty good post-launch party out there in international waters." Reader marat points to CNN coverage of the launch. Isn't it neat how the space game is heating up?

Comments

Re:ok (almost) real post

[giblfiz]

I was lucky enough to hear one of the guys who engineers for the company speak at an IEEE meeting. Apparently There are a few major advantages to launching from the Pacific. By doing there launches this way they can have all of the equipment that they need transported to a loading dock in a relatively urban setting. Additionally it allows all of the personnel to live in a relatively urban setting while they work on the rockets. But the biggest advantage is that they can transport the rocket to the launch sight by boat (and the launch sight it in international waters) Apparently the U.S. gets pissed off if you launch rockets on real estate that is even remotely habitable, Buying a launch sight and getting the rocket there would be a MAJOR expense.

There set up is also pretty cool, they have two "ships" one is an unmanned oil platform where they keep/launch the rocket, the other is a control ship where a crew of (mostly Russian) engineers controls the launch. They seem to use a lot of Russian parts as well.