Boeing Sea Launch puts first satellite in orbit on October 9, 1999.

  • By Walt Crowley
  • Posted 10/11/1999
  • HistoryLink.org Essay 1731

On October 9, 1999, the Boeing-led Sea Launch Company successfully launches its first satellite into orbit from a floating platform in the equatorial Pacific Ocean (at 154 degrees West Longitude).

 

The Russian-Ukrainian rocket blasted off from a converted Norwegian drilling platform at 8:28 PDT with a DirecTV I-R satellite, and placed it in geosynchronous orbit one hour later. Nineteen more Sea Launch missions are planned through the year 2003.

In 2001, Boeing is a 40 percent partner of Sea Launch, through the Boeing Commercial Space Company. According to Boeing, the firm "manufactures the payload fairing, is responsible for analytical and physical spacecraft integration, and manages overall mission operations, including the Home Port" (Webpage).

Home port is in Long Beach, California. The international partnership also involves firms from Russia (RSC Energia), the Ukraine (SDO Yuzhnoye/PO Yuzhmash), and Norway (Anglo-Norwegian Kvaerner Group).


Sources:

Seattle Post-Intelligencer, October 11, 1999; Boeing Webpage (http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/space/sealaunch/).


Licensing: This essay is licensed under a Creative Commons license that encourages reproduction with attribution. Credit should be given to both HistoryLink.org and to the author, and sources must be included with any reproduction. Click the icon for more info. Please note that this Creative Commons license applies to text only, and not to images. For more information regarding individual photos or images, please contact the source noted in the image credit.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
Major Support for HistoryLink.org Provided By: The State of Washington | Patsy Bullitt Collins | Paul G. Allen Family Foundation | Museum Of History & Industry | 4Culture (King County Lodging Tax Revenue) | City of Seattle | City of Bellevue | City of Tacoma | King County | The Peach Foundation | Microsoft Corporation, Other Public and Private Sponsors and Visitors Like You