June 16, 1999
Web posted at: 1:35 p.m. EDT (1735 GMT)

By CNN Interactive
Senior Writer Robin Lloyd

(CNN) Hughes Space and Communications has put in four more orders with an international venture for satellite launches from a floating platform in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, it was announced Wednesday.

Sea Launch Co., a partnership between Boeing Commercial Space Co. and companies in Norway, Russian and Ukraine, already had agreements for 10 launch contracts from Hughes and five others with Loral Co.

"This is a large boost in confidence from our largest customer -- Hughes," said Sea Launch spokesman Terrance Scott. "It also expands our launch manifest to 2003."

The announcement was made at the Paris Air Show.

On March 27, Sea Launch shot a rocket with a simulated payload from a converted oil platform in the Pacific Ocean to demonstrate the feasibility of its concept. The new Hughes launches are set to take place between 2001 and 2003.

The venture's first non-demonstration launch, a DIRECTV satellite made by a division of Hughes, is set for August or September from Sea Launch's Odyssey platform stationed 1,400 miles south of Hawaii, Scott said.

The demonstration launch was key for Sea Launch, which has put $500 million into the first commercial marine-based launching system in hopes of capturing some of the growing business of boosting communications satellite.

Launches at the equator allow the company's Zenit-3SL rocket to carry more weight into space than it could from other latitudes or to place a payload into a higher orbit, helping to keep a satellite operational for longer, said Sea Launch President Allen B. Ashby.

The Sea Launch partnership includes Kvaerner Maritime a.s., of Oslo, Norway (the vessel builder); RSC Energia of Moscow, Russia (provides the Block-DM upper stage and its integration with the launch vehicle); and KB Yuzhnoye/PO Yuzhmash of Ukraine (provides the first two stages of the launch vehicle).

In August 1998, the State Department suspended all Sea Launch work between Boeing and its Russian and Ukrainian partners over worries that sensitive aerospace data could be transferred overseas. That suspension has been lifted, Scott said.

"We have put the necessary procedures in place to comply with all regulations," he said. "Everybody is happy."

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