CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Had all gone well at Cape Canaveral in 1998 there wouldn't be a launch from French Guiana scheduled for Monday evening.
On August 26, 1998 the very first Boeing Delta 3 rocket took off from Cape Canaveral Air Station and minutes later flew out of control, exploding in the night sky and sending its Galaxy 10 communications satellite to a fiery crash into the Atlantic Ocean.
Now, 17 months later, a replacement for the lost satellite, dubbed Galaxy 10-R, is on target for launch between 8:12 p.m. and 8:44 p.m. Eastern Standard Time Monday, only this time the satellite will be carried aloft not by an American rocket, but by its European competitor, Arianespace.
"We're using Ariane because we've built a long-term relationship with them. They have reliability and service and schedule flexibility," said Dan Marcus, vice president for communications for PanAmSat Corp., the company that will operate the satellite once it is safely in Earth orbit.
Marcus' words are diplomatic, both in content and tone, but they suggest something else: That U.S. launch firms do not have the same kind of record or reputation for being reliable or providing the scheduling flexibility that is sometimes required when satellite deliveries to the launch pad are delayed.
The sentiment is nothing new within the highly competitive arena of commercial launch services, which Arianespace has dominated for years.
More than half of all commercial rocket missions launched each year take place at Arianespace's launch site in Kourou, French Guiana.
A string of American rocket failures during the past two years hasn't helped change the situation.
Failures of Delta 3 and Titan 4 rockets and their upper stages effectively grounded most of the U.S. fleet during 1999 and sent launch customers scurrying to sign new contracts with the international competition.
"Nobody was going to sign a contract until the return to flight question was resolved," said Ed O'Connor, director of the Spaceport Florida Authority, the Sunshine State's official space agency, which, in part, works to attract aerospace business to Florida.
"Very quickly, this year, we're going to see the confidence completely restored with Boeing and Lockheed Martin," which manufactures the commercial Delta and Atlas rockets, respectively, O'Connor added.
But companies like PanAmSat couldn't wait.
With plans to launch seven satellites into orbit between the end of 1999 and mid-2001, PanAmSat looked to spread the risk of launch among three different rockets, while also looking for the best price and service.
Arianespace came up the winner, as did the Russian Proton rocket launched from Kazakhstan and the Ukrainian Zenit rocket launched from a seagoing platform stationed at the equator in the Pacific Ocean.
"Certainly cost is something that falls into the equation. We carefully and competitively bid our launch agreements, and that's why we use three launch providers," Marcus said. "Even using the Delta 3, which unfortunately was unsuccessful, was part of our effort to make sure we have a diversity of launch providers."
O'Connor sees it the same way: "They made a conscious decision to deploy on several launch vehicles, and they went for low price. I think what happened in this case was just a peculiar coincidence of time and activity."
Now with 20 satellites in orbit, PanAmSat hopes to add number 21 on Monday. As of Sunday afternoon everything still looked good for Arianespace's first launch in 2000.
The start of the final countdown was to begin at 3:42 a.m. EST today, followed by the removal of the mobile service tower, fueling of the third stage and the start of the final launch sequence just six minutes before liftoff.
Once in orbit the Galaxy 10-R satellite will be used to provide cable television and other telecommunications services for broadcasters and programmers such as the BBC, China Central Television, Discovery, Disney, NHK, Time-Warner, Viacom and others, which distribute their television programming to cable systems and home viewers worldwide.
PanAmSat will position Galaxy 10-R near two other satellites already in orbit -- Galaxy 5 and Galaxy 9 -- so thousands of cable service providers can better serve their television viewing customers.
Cost of this mission to PanAmSat is between $200 and $250 million, Marcus said.
The companies that insured the Galaxy 10 accident paid for this new satellite, a Hughes model HS 601-HP spacecraft. It has 48 channels covering two frequency bands and continues the strong corporate relationship Hughes and PanAmSat have built through the years.
"Galaxy 10-R is the first of five satellites we plan to launch this year for PanAmSat," said Hughes Space and Communications president Tig Krekel. "We look forward to this being as successful a mission."
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