WASHINGTON -- Who needs to bother with booking a slot on Florida's crowded rocket range when there's a whole wide ocean available?
That's what PanAmSat figures in signing on with Sea Launch to have five of its satellites hoisted into orbit starting next year. The spacecraft will go atop a rocket that will blast off from a floating pad in the middle of the Pacific near the equator.
Sea Launch is two-for-two in the space business -- after a demonstration launch last March and its first commercial launch last October. The company is an international partnership between the Boeing Co., Russia's space giant RSC Energia and two smaller companies in the Ukraine and Norway. The PanAmSat contract puts 19 firm launches on the Sea Launch schedule.
Going by sea means getting a "reliable and flexible launch provider to ensure timely and effective delivery," said Robert Bednarek, PanAmSat's executive vice president.
For Sea Launch, the agreement "solidifies our position as an established launch services provider," said Wil Trafton, Sea Launch president.
The agreement announced Wednesday at the Satellite 2000 conference in Washington calls for the launch of the advanced Galaxy 3-C during the second quarter of 2001. It also gives PanAmSat the option of getting four more Sea Launch missions through 2003.
Neither company would disclose the contract's value.
The satellites would go up on a Russian-Ukrainian Zenit 3-SL rocket launching off from an equatorial platform in the Pacific Ocean. A liftoff from there gives satellite owners the most direct and cost-effective route to space without requiring costly changes in the trajectory of the rocket to avoid populated areas.
Galaxy 3-C, built by Hughes Space and Communications, will provide video, internet and telecommunications services in the U.S. and Latin America.
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