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 |  | Launch Delays Will Not Affect XM Radio Service Schedule, Company Says
By Jim Banke
Senior Producer
And Jason Bates
Spacenews.com Staff Writer
posted: 01:02 pm ET
10 January 2001
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Launch Delays Will Not Affect XM Radio Service Schedule, Company Says
WASHINGTON — Officials with XM Satellite Radio said in a Jan. 10 statement that the revised timetable for launching their two digital radio broadcast satellites should have no material financial impact on the company and will still allow XM to roll out its planned service this summer as planned.
The first of those satellites, which the company named Roll, was scheduled for launch Jan. 8 aboard a Zenit 3SL rocket operated by Sea Launch of Long Beach, California. But the mission was postponed at the last minute, and Sea Launch officials said Jan. 9 that they were returning the launch system to Long Beach for refurbishment work.
The Sea Launch Zenit is launched from a oceangoing facility that sails close to the equator to maximize the size of communications satellites it can launch to geostationary orbit, roughly 22,370 miles (36,000 kilometers) above Earth’s surface.
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The new target launch date is Feb. 28, a delay of nearly two months for Roll. The delay of the first satellite means that its twin, dubbed Rock, will not be launched until mid April, officials with Washington-based XM [XMSR] said in the press release. The delays will not affect the company’s plans to begin delivering 100 channels of digital radio programming to U.S. customers this summer, the press release said.
The launch of Roll was aborted 11 seconds before liftoff, when a monitoring system indicated there might be a problem with the satellite. The signal turned out to be false, but because the scrub occurred so late in the countdown some of the vehicle’s pre-ignition processes had already begun. Sea Launch officials therefore decided that a restart of the 50-day launch preparedness cycle was necessary, requiring a return of the launch platform, rocket and satellite to Long Beach.
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