Yousuf Al Sayed, CEO of Thuraya, confirmed that his company will launch its Thuraya-3 satellite with Sea Launch despite delays stemming from a January failure. Thuraya-3 is intended to expand satellite telephone service into Asia and Australia in the mission for Sea Launch’s planned return to flight in October.

"Launching objects into space is a risky business and failures are possible by any launch provider or satellite manufacturer," said Al Sayed.

Sea Launch placed Thuraya-1 in orbit in 2000 and Thuraya-2 in 2003.

Sea Launch lost the contract to launch Hughes Network Systems‘ Spaceway-3 communications satellite, which had been planned for July. Other contracted customers included DirecTV, Intelsat and EchoStar Communications Corp.