Sea Launch aims for liftoff in fall

A Long Beach-based venture that launches rockets at sea said Tuesday that it could begin launching again in October, about eight months after an explosion destroyed a commercial satellite and grounded operations.

Sea Launch Co., a joint venture of Boeing Co., a Norwegian shipbuilder and Russian rocket makers, said the explosion was caused by an anomaly in the rocket’s first-stage engine, which provides the initial thrust for liftoff.

The failed launch Jan. 30 gained worldwide notoriety after dramatic video images of the explosion were posted on the Internet. The images captured Sea Launch’s oceangoing platform engulfed in a massive fireball.

In a statement to the Associated Press last month, the Ukrainian firm that built the engine said the explosion might have been caused by a stray metal fragment that entered a pump in the rocket’s engine.

A commission formed by Russian and Ukrainian space agencies to investigate the incident outlined steps to prevent a similar occurrence and recommended the continued use of the rocket engines.

The engines were used in 24 previously successful Sea Launch missions.

Sea Launch executives in Long Beach said they expected to have the platform, a converted oil rig, repaired and recertified by September for a return to flight in October. It takes about two weeks for the launch vessel to reach its equatorial deployment site, about 3,300 miles southwest of Long Beach.

The location in the Pacific Ocean offers advantages of both geography (remoteness from populated areas) and physics (the ability of rockets to reach orbit faster while burning less fuel as they use the Earth’s rotation for momentum).

“The vessel really didn’t incur damages,” said Paula Korn, a spokeswoman for Sea Launch. “It was really just the equipment on the vessel.”

Still, repair costs could be $25 million to $50 million, all of which would be paid by a $260-million insurance policy covering the vessel, Korn said.

Some of the repairs are expected to be completed in Long Beach. Heavy industrial work, such as replacing a gas deflector located beneath the launch pad and repainting the vessel, will be performed at a West Coast shipyard still to be determined.

Korn said the company had not lost customers or had launch contracts canceled, although satellite operators had been shifting some payloads that were scheduled to be handled by Sea Launch this year to other rocket providers.

The company still expects to launch three of the six rockets that were on its manifest this year.

peter.pae@latimes.com