Friday's launch of a PanAmSat telecommunications satellite was closely watched around the world coming on the heels of a failed March 12 attempt that destroyed an ICO F-1 communications satellite. Two earlier launches, both in 1999, were successes for the nascent company.

"The eyes of the whole industry were on you today," Tig Krekel, president and chief executive officer of Hughes Space and Communications Co., manufacturer for PanAmSat of the PAS-9 satellite, told Trafton after controllers were able to declare Friday's launch from the Pacific Ocean a complete success.

The fourth Sea Launch rocket climbs toward space carrying PanAmSat's PAS-9 satellite in this view from Sea Launch's satellite coverage of the mission. SPACE.com image from Sea Launch TV.

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Sea Launch works

The launch also provided further confirmation of the novel Sea Launch system: The company launches its Zenit rockets from a converted North Sea oil-drilling rig sailed from Long Beach for each shot and parked on the equator in the Pacific Ocean.

"The three successes say the concept is really sound," said John Willacker, vice president of space launch operations for The Aerospace Corporation, an El Segundo, Calif.-based nonprofit research and development center. "It really bodes well for them."

The Zenit 3-SL rocket Sea Launch intends to use to launch the PAS-9 satellite is lifted into a vertical position as part of pre-launch tests staged at Sea Launch's home port in Long Beach, Calif. Sea Launch image.

With the company now batting .750, an achievement that is "absolutely crucial in terms of market perception," business should begin picking up, said Amy Buhrig, Sea Launch's vice president of marketing and sales.

"It reestablishes Sea Launch as one of the premier launch suppliers for heavy-lift launch capability," Buhrig said. The company's launch backlog stands at 17 payloads, a number that will soon creep upward to 18, she added.

A likely easing of quotas on launch vehicles from Russia and the Ukraine may provide a further boon to Sea Launch's business, one analyst said.

"If you look at it from the perspective that launch quotas will be lifted and now you get a successful launch, it really opens up a lot of opportunities," said Marco Caceres, senior space analyst for the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va. "The timing was just right."

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Business blasts off

During a previous interview with SPACE.com, Trafton said Sea Launch hopes to turn profitable in as little as three years' time, while also gradually ramping up to between six and eight launches a year.

An artist's concept shows how the PAS-9 satellite looks in orbit over Earth after riding into space on Sea Launch's Zenit rocket. Hughes Space and Communications image.

"We're in this business for the long haul," Trafton said on Friday.

At present, the company boasts it can handle a 50-day turnaround between launches from its floating platform.

The company may compress that schedule by leaving its Odyssey launch platform at sea while its command ship returns to Long Beach to fetch a second rocket and payload. Sea Launch would then transfer both to the platform while at sea, a maneuver it hopes to soon practice with a dummy rocket.