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Sea Launch Company to launch 1st commsat in 2014 from Odysseus floating platform

The satellite will make it possible to diversify services being rendered to internet providers, government agencies and transmitting stations

Odysseus Sea Launch platform (archive) ITAR-TASS/Viktor Katayev

Odysseus Sea Launch platform (archive)

© ITAR-TASS/Viktor Katayev

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SEA LAUNCH PROJECT

The Sea Launch multinational company was founded in 1995 with the participation of the American Boeing Company, Russia's space rocket corporation Energia, the Norwegian Kvaerner Company, and Ukraine's enterprises such as Yuzhnoye (southern) and Yuzhmash (southern engineering) design bureaus.

This is the first-ever commercial international project for the development and operation of a sea-launch space rocket complex. The Company and a floating space-launch platform were brought into being with a view to implementing the idea of launching space rockets from the equator. Thirty-five launches of Zenit-3SL rockets were carried out under the Sea Launch program with 32 of them being successful.

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