Posted: Tue, Jun 10, 2003, 2:34 PM ET (1834 GMT)
The first Sea Launch mission in nearly a year successfully placed a mobile telephone satellite into orbit Tuesday. The Zenit 3SL lifted off at 9:56 am EDT (1356 GMT) from the Sea Launch floating launch platform on the Equator in the Pacific Ocean south of Hawaii. The booster's payload, the Thuraya 2 satellite, separated from the vehicle's Block DM upper stage one hour and 40 minutes after liftoff, after being placed into a geosynchronous transfer orbit. Thuraya 2, based on the Boeing 702 satellite, will eventually be stationed at 44 degrees east longitude to provide mobile phone services for much of Asia, northern Africa, the Middle East, and eastern Europe. The satellite will augment the existing Thuraya 1 satellite, one of the first 702-series spacecraft launched; problems with the solar concentrators on it and other early 702 spacecraft mean the spacecraft will lose power faster that designed, necessitating in part the launch of the second spacecraft. The launch was the first for the Zenit 3SL in almost exactly one year: the previous launch, of the Galaxy 3C satellite, took place on June 15, 2002. Sea Launch, the multinational venture that includes Boeing as well as Ukrainian, Russian, and Norwegian firms, predicts that it will launch three more times this year.

Related Links:

•  Boeing press release
•  SPACE.com article
•  AP article
•  Space News article (subscription required)