Zenit Postpones Sea Launch

This year’s first launch attempt of a Ukrainian-Russian Zenit-3SL carrier rocket as part of the Sea Launch international space program has failed. The launch of the rocket from the Odysseus floating platform in the Pacific, scheduled for 12:35 a.m. Kyiv time on the night of January 9, was scrubbed at the last moment and has been postponed indefinitely.

According to Yuri Akekseyenko, spokesman for the Dnipropetrovsk- based Pivdenne Chief Design Bureau, all automatic pre-launch preparations at first “were coming off well, with no complaints.” However, immediately before firing the engines, “due to an emergency situation onboard the spacecraft,” the computer canceled the launch of the rocket carrying the US-made Hughes XM-Radio-1 satellite. The Pivdenne Design Bureau, which developed the Zenit, so far declines to disclose what kind of “emergency situation” there was, promising only to reveal in the immediate future its “plans for further work.”

Whatever the case, Ukrainian rocket builders have been plagued by a string of failures. On New Year’s Eve, a Ukrainian Tsyklon-3 carrier rocket with six Russian satellites onboard plunged into the East Siberian Sea after taking off from the Plisetsk launch site. There were also snags in the framework of the Sea Launch program. For example, last March a Zenit-3SL carrier rocket fell into the Pacific after being launched from the Odysseus platform. True, experts concluded this was caused by a computerized control system algorithm malfunction allegedly through an error of our Russian partners. No one has ever raised claims against the Ukrainian rocket specialists for the Zenit, the latter being justly considered the most sophisticated carrier rocket of not only the twentieth but also the early twenty-first century. As Pivdenne reports, it is planned to launch at least three Zenit-3SL rockets, as part of the Sea Launch program, this year.

PS. The launch of the US-made XM-1 satellite by the Zenit-3SL has been postponed to February 28, the Sea Launch International Consortium states in a press release.