Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Something That Gives Pause To SDARS

January 31, 2007

While the explosion such as yesterdays loss of the NSS-8 satellite and Sea Launch Zenit-3SL vehicle are rare, they do happen. Sea Launch had the following statement:

Sea Launch Experiences Anomaly during NSS-8 Launch
Long Beach, Calif., January 30, 2007 –A Sea Launch Zenit-3SL vehicle, carrying the NSS-8 satellite, experienced an anomaly today during launch operations.
Sea Launch will establish a Failure Review Oversight Board to determine the root cause of this anomaly. Please call the Sea Launch Hot Line for further information, as it becomes available. We will also post updates on the Sea Launch website at http://www.sea-launch.com/.

Again, this type of event is rare, but is something satellite radio investors should be aware of. To be clear, this event had nothing to do with Sirius or XM satellites.

Sea Launch most recently launched XM4, which was an overwhelming success. Sirius contracts launches with ILS. The video above is located on YouTube

Labels: ils, launch, satellite choice, sea launch