thuraya
Spaceflight Now | Sea Launch Mission Report | Sea Launch successfully returns to flight
The Mission
Rocket: Zenit 3SL
Payload: Thuraya 3
Date: Jan. 15, 2008
Window: 1149-1233 GMT (6:49-7:33 a.m. EST)
Site: Equator, 154° West, Pacific Ocean
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Sea Launch successfully returns to flight
BY STEPHEN CLARKSPACEFLIGHT NOWPosted: January 15, 2008
Credit: Sea Launch
One year after a Sea Launch Zenit rocket was engulfed in a dramatic launch pad explosion in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the Ukrainian booster successfully returned to the skies Wednesday to haul an Arab mobile communications satellite into space.
"This was an opportunity that we've been looking forward to," said Rob
Peckham, Sea Launch president and general manager. "It's an opportunity to
succeed and this team did succeed."
With its RD-171 engine blazing with 1.6 million pounds of thrust, the
200-foot-tall Zenit 3SL rocket blasted off the Odyssey launch platform at
1149 GMT (6:49 a.m. EST) Tuesday. Odyssey was positioned in the Pacific
Ocean along the equator at 154 degrees west longitude.
The three-stage rocket turned east away from the pad after liftoff,
heading just south of the equator as it dropped its two lower stages and
payload fairing into the Pacific Ocean.
The Russian Block DM-SL upper stage fired twice during the mission, first
to reach a temporary low-altitude parking orbit, then to power the Thuraya
3 satellite into a much higher geosynchronous transfer orbit.
The upper stage deployed the 11,381-pound spacecraft on schedule about one
hour and 39 minutes into the flight, putting a successful punctuation mark
on Sea Launch's 25th mission.
"This is one the biggest victories we've had in the history of Sea
Launch," said Valery Aliev, manager of Sea Launch's rocket operations.
"This is rocket science and it's always an honor when something like this
is executed so flawlessly, as it was today," said Jim Simpson, vice
president of business development at Boeing Satellite Systems, builder of
the Thuraya 3 spacecraft.
A California ground station received the first telemetry signals from
Thuraya 3 moments after spacecraft separation.
"This spacecraft, though not the heaviest, was probably the most difficult
and challenging one for us," Aliev said. "We were looking into our
customers' eyes and we really wanted to pull through for them."
The rocket accurately discharged the payload in an orbit with a low point
of 460 miles, a high point of 22,243 miles, and an inclination of 6.2
degrees.
"We're extremely satisfied with today's mission results," Peckham told an
excited crowd of employees and customers gathered at the Sea Launch home
port in Long Beach, Calif.
The last time a Zenit rocket launched from the converted Norwegian oil
platform, a wayward chunk of metallic debris lodged inside the first stage
engine's liquid oxygen turbopump caused the power plant's fiery
destruction during the ignition sequence. After losing thrust, the rocket
fell through a flame duct opening on the launch pedestal and exploded.
The January 2007 failure was a major setback for Sea Launch, which lost
several satellite contracts to competitors.
The fireball damaged several critical parts of the Odyssey platform,
including a 600,000-pound flame deflector, hangar doors, communications
antennas, and a maze of wires and cables, according to Sea Launch.
A new flame deflector was manufactured in Russia, and Odyssey was sailed
to a shipyard in Vancouver, British Columbia, for other repairs and
repainting.
High winds and strong ocean currents forced Sea Launch officials to
postpone the launch from an initial series of attempts in November. The
poor conditions forced officials to eventually turn back and return to
port after several weeks at sea. The vessels set sail again around New
Year's.
Monday's launch of Thuraya 3 was a textbook mission, putting last year's
bitter failure behind the Sea Launch team as the company begins a busy
stretch of missions from both the Pacific and the Baikonur Cosmodrome
under the Land Launch venture.
"We have recovered from the difficult failure; we have conquered the
weather that we experienced during the first part of the Thuraya 3
campaign; and we have shown to the world that our launch team is one of
the best in the world," Aliev said.
Credit: Sea Launch
Thuraya 3 will continue to refine its orbit over the coming weeks before
reaching a final circular orbit at an altitude of about 22,300 miles with
an inclination of about 6.2 degrees. The satellite will be stationed in an
orbital slot at 98.5 degrees east longitude, high above the eastern Indian
Ocean.
Thuraya 3 will also unfurl its two solar panels stretching 134 feet tip to
tip and deploy a web-like 40-foot mesh antenna reflector.
After a comprehensive period of system tests, the spacecraft should be
declared operational within the next two months to begin a more than
12-year mission.
The craft is the third satellite orbited by Sea Launch for Thuraya
Satellite Telecommunications Co., a company based in the United Arab
Emirates providing extensive mobile communications coverage to a swath of
the planet home to more than 2.3 billion people.
Thuraya 1's mission was cut short by a faulty power production system,
forcing Thuraya 2 to shoulder the brunt of the company's satellite
communications business.
The system can currently reach customers throughout the Middle East and
Europe, in addition to much of Africa and portions of Asia.
But the critical addition of Thuraya 3 will enable the company to expand
its services to the Pacific Rim in key markets such as China, Japan,
Korea, Australia, and Singapore.
"There's been a lot of effort at Thuraya expanding our system and
preparing for this launch on the ground, and Thuraya 3 is really the
crowning of this effort," said Yousuf Al Sayed, chief executive officer of
Thuraya.
Thuraya will pursue both land and sea markets in the Asia-Pacific region,
according to company officials.
"China is a very important market for Thuraya in the Asia-Pacific as a
land market," Al Sayed said. "However, Thuraya is also preparing a
maritime system for that region due to the extent of the maritime activity
there."
Thuraya's communications system is based on a marriage of traditional
land-based cellular services and satellite-provided communications.
Customers inside terrestrial coverage areas can use cellular services, but
the phones can automatically switch to satellite mode when in remote areas
out of reach of traditional communications networks, according to Thuraya.
"We would like to bring the same kind of experience that people enjoy in
cities into remote and rural areas as well as in the maritime (market),"
Al Sayed said.
The handset models include the smallest satellite phone in the world, a
device weighing just one-third of a pound that provides built-in data
transfer capabilities, a GPS receiver, and a camera.
"The users, whether they are in cities and towns or in remote areas, enjoy
the same facilities and capabilities regardless of the type of service,
whether it's voice or data," Al Sayed said.
U.S.-based Hughes Network Systems and Ascom of Switzerland provide the
user terminals.
The system can handle up to 25,120 simultaneous voice phone calls,
according to Boeing.
A fourth Thuraya satellite will be added to the constellation in the next
few years to serve as a backup, Al Sayed said.
Peckham said the next Sea Launch mission is scheduled for March to deliver
another communications satellite into orbit.
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