Comments on: Breaking news: Sealaunch rocket explodes on pad!

By: Dale

Dale — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 00:25:12 +0000

Joe Rocket is off-base with the safety will play a major role, etc, major corporations will back off of this cheap access to space remarks. I, too, have has close ties to both Sea Launch and other launch and space efforts and I can say no other program has had the success of Sea Launch at any price. They have had 22 of 24 successes. EELV and its predecessor Delta program as well as Atlas, Titan, programs have had much higher catastrophic launch failures.

No, it is hard for the EELV program to admit that they have to charge four times as much to launch a satellite than Sea Launch. Remember Sea Launch can put 14,000 pounds into Geo Sationary orbit. You don’t begin to do that until you get into the “Heavy” versions of the EELV.

By: James McEnanly

James McEnanly — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 01:04:25 +0000

I can only hope that there was no one was on the pad when the rocket exploded. It looks like it was a total loss.

By: Davis

Davis — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 17:37:47 +0000

Am I the only one who watched the video, and had a moment of heartbreak when it was clear the launch was failing?

By: Melusine

Melusine — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 16:53:34 +0000

Bummer. Nobody enjoys seeing the payload go up in smoke.

By: Kristopher

Kristopher — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 16:41:16 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMG2SBwIcrM

By: Tom Hielscher

Tom Hielscher — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:41:16 +0000

According to my company’s offical web site; Sea Launch just experienced an anomaly during NSS-8 launch

A Sea Launch Zenit-3SL vehicle, carrying the Boeing-built NSS-8 satellite, experienced an anomaly Tuesday during launch operations. There were no injuries involved in the failure and the satellite was insured.
Three more launches scheduled for 2007 on Sea Launch will carry Boeing payloads: Thuraya D3, Spaceway F3 and DIRECTV 11.
Sea Launch will establish a Failure Review Oversight Board to determine the root cause of this anomaly.
Thats one spectacular anomaly!

By: Lab Lemming

Lab Lemming — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 09:41:48 +0000

Was the launch site in shallow enough water to allow salvage and debris recovery to investigate the problem, or is this thing out in 5 km of open ocean?

Hopefully this will convince them to put their pad in an obliging equatorial country that could use the development.