Finance

A star-crossed start of the year for Sea Launch saw the launch provider take another hit with the March 1 announcement that Arianespace has been retained to launch the Spaceway-3 communications satellite for Hughes Network Systems LLC. An August liftoff is scheduled aboard an Ariane 5 launch from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French...

A shortage of funds will mean that NASA will see a delay of up to six months for the scheduled first launch of the next-generation Orion-Ares crew exploration vehicle, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said Feb. 28. That will only lengthen further an already "unseemly" four-year gap from when the existing space shuttle fleet is scheduled...

It is, quite simply, a spectacular 18 seconds of video. The explosion that destroyed Sea Launch’s Zenit-3SL rocket and SES New Skies’ NSS-8 satellite, creating a fireball that engulfed the Odyssey Launch platform, are a stark reminder that launching a satellite remains a difficult task. The good news is that Sea Launch personnel were on...

Sea Launch’s Odyssey launch platform lost its flame deflector and the aft doors of the hangar have been knocked off their supports, the company announced Feb. 9. The flame deflector is located below the launch pad, while the hangar houses and protects the transporter-erector support structure during launch operations. Preliminary assessments indicate that other launch...

Days after the catastrophic failure of Sea Launch’s Zenit-3SL vehicle carrying a satellite for SES New Skies, the launch provider is assessing the damage to the launch platform and looking forward to a renewal of operations. According to Sea Launch, its marine crew is performing a comprehensive assessment of the floating Odyssey Launch Platform following...

In the aftermath of the Jan. 30 catastrophic launch failure of Sea Launch’s Zenit-3SL vehicle carrying the NSS-8 satellite for SES New Skies, industry experts were trying to anticipate the fallout in the commercial launch market. NSS-8, built by Boeing, was intended to replace New Skies’ NSS-703 satellite, but the loss of NSS-8 is not...

Final preparations are underway for the launch of the NSS-8 satellite, SES New Skies announced. Sea Launch is scheduled to place the satellite into orbit Jan. 25 using a Zenit-3SL rocket. NSS-8 is a Boeing 702 spacecraft carrying 56 C-band and 36 Ku-band transponders and is designed to replace NSS-703 at 57° East longitude.

UGS Corp. will supply its NX digital product development software to Rocketplane Kistler Inc. (RPK) for the development of the K-1 launch vehicle, UGS announced. The K-1 is a fully reusable, two-stage launch vehicle that may one day deliver cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). RPK is developing the vehicle under a...

Big satellites are the workhorses of the satellite industry, but smaller spacecraft are performing more and more missions as a growing number of customers are finding that small satellites are rugged, affordable and can perform many jobs. According to Luca Maresi, a systems engineer at European Space Agency’s (ESA) European Space Research and Technology Center,...

While the 1957 launch of Sputnik 1 inspired fear and trepidation in the West about satellites, the 1962 launch of AT&T’s Telstar 1 inspired boundless optimism about the potential for the Space Age to improve the daily life of the average American and to connect the entire globe. The commercial satellite industry did indeed change the world,...