Sea Launch has said it has completed its analysis of its launch failure last March 12 and is ready to return to flight late next month. Its next launch will be PanAmSat’s PAS-9 satellite for coverage of the Atlantic Ocean Region.

“Based on the investigation and subsequent report, we are completely confident the root cause was clearly identified,” said Jim Maser, chief engineer of the company and chairman of the Review Board.

We also identified corrective actions that address not only the ground software logic error, but also all associated process weaknesses that could have allowed such an error to go undetected,” Maser added.

Sea Launch said a small team from the Review Board has presented a comprehensive briefing to US and international insurance underwriters and near-term customers. The company said it received federal government licences and approvals to provide the briefings.

For its next, late July launch, Sea Launch said it will conduct its standard Mission Readiness Review to ensure that all elements of the mission are ready for the operation and also will conduct “an additional Executive Review to clearly demonstrate to its customer [PanAmSat] that the highest levels of each partner organisation has been intimately involved in the satisfactory implementation of all corrective actions.”

The Sea Launch partners are The Boeing Co, RSC Energia of Russia, SDO Yuzhnoye/PO Yuzhmash of Ukraine and the Anglo-Norwegian Kvaerner Group.

Sea Launch also is closing its headquarters offices in Georgetown, Grand Cayman Island, where it had opened its office several years ago and had 25 to 30 people, and moving the headquarters to Long Beach, California, the home port of its launch vessels and its integration site.

The main reason for the move is to consolidate the headquarters and operating functions, according to Sea Launch’s spokeswoman.