ST. LOUIS, Dec. 15, 2006 -- Boeing Commercial Space Company (BCSC), a subsidiary of The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA], Thursday celebrated the transfer of the 25th Payload Accommodations package to Sea Launch Company, LLC.
The Payload Accommodations package consists of several elements. The high-tech composite Payload Accommodations Fairing is a conical shell measuring 40 feet long and 14 feet wide that protects a satellite during liftoff from a floating launch platform positioned on the Equator. The fairing is jettisoned once it is above the atmosphere and falls to the ocean. The package also includes the payload support structure, an interface skirt, a spacecraft adapter and the avionics necessary to operate and track launch activities within the payload system.
In an employee celebration at the Composites, Fabrication and Assembly Center in Seattle, Ken Heinly, Boeing director of Launch Products and Services and BCSC vice president, hailed employees' reputation for quality, innovation and teamwork.
"This is a team that has set goals that are about as lofty as one can get and has reached them every time," Heinly said.
Sea Launch President and General Manager Rob Peckham also congratulated the team on its achievement, saying, "The sheer excellence of your performance has been an important component of the success of Sea Launch over the past 10 years. This extraordinary partnership has achieved 20 consecutive successful launches and 22 successes of 23 launch attempts overall since our first mission eight years ago."
BCSC provides flight design services and operational hardware to support Sea Launch missions. In addition to the Payload Accommodations package, BCSC performs the mission integration activities necessary to ensure compatibility between the Sea Launch system and the customer satellite to include mission design, system integration, interface verification and launch operations support. BCSC personnel also perform post-flight data review and analysis.
BCSC's work represents one of more than a dozen programs at Boeing Integrated Defense Systems' Puget Sound location, which includes facilities in Kent, Seattle, Renton and Auburn, Wash., employing more than 8,000.
Sea Launch Company, LLC, is an international partnership of American, Russian, Ukrainian and Norwegian businesses. The Sea Launch equatorial launch site provides the most direct route to geostationary orbit, yielding maximum lift capacity for increased payload mass or extended spacecraft life. BCSC, a Boeing subsidiary, serves as both a partner and a contractor to Sea Launch.
The Sea Launch Partnership
- Boeing -- PLA operational hardware, launch services, mission integration, post-flight data review and analysis
- RSC Energia -- Block DM upper stage, launch vehicle integration, ground systems and launch operations
- SDO Yuzhnoye / PO Yuzhmash -- Two stages of Zenit-3SL, vehicle integration support, launch operations support
- Aker ASA -- Odyssey Launch Platform and the Sea Launch Commander (assembly and command ship)