Zenit rocket launches DirecTV-11 satellite

Thursday, March 20, 2008

A Sea Launch Zenit-3SL rocket has successfully launched the DirecTV-11 Communications satellite for DirecTV. The Ukrainian-built rocket lifted off from the Norwegian Ocean Odyssey launch platform in the Pacific Ocean at 22:47:59 (UTC) yesterday evening, with spacecraft separation from the carrier rocket occurring at 23:49:03.

The mission, which marked the 13^th orbital launch of 2008, is the 25^th commercial launch to be conducted by the international Sea Launch consortium, the first of which also lofted a DirecTV satellite. This is also the 250^th flight of the Block DM upper stage, which is used on some variants of the Zenit and Proton rockets. Launch had been delayed from November 2007 due to damage to the launch platform caused by the failure of an earlier Zenit launch. Delays from earlier this month were caused by a problem with the satellite, resulting in a ten-day delay, and a further two-day delay from Monday evening due to an undisclosed problem with the rocket.

DirecTV-11 is a Boeing 702 satellite, which will provide Direct-to-home High-definition television broadcasting services to houses in the United States, by means of Ka-band communications. It is one of three such satellites operated by DirecTV. The satellite made its first contact with the ground several hours after launch, at 05:44 GMT.

The launch was dedicated to Arthur C. Clarke who died on Tuesday. Clarke, who was most well known for writing the book which 2001: A Space Odyssey was based on, was also the first person to suggest placing satellites into geosynchronous and geostationary orbits. DirecTV-11 will be placed into such an orbit.

Sea Launch President Rob Peckham said that he "feels good" about the mission success, and that Sea Launch was "proud of [its] role in DirecTV's continued success". Steve O'Neill, the President of Boeing Satellite Systems, said that the launch was "a great ride", and thanked Sea Launch for their "excellent work".

The satellite's initial orbit was confirmed to be 250km x 36484.8km x 0°, differing by only 2.8km from the planned orbit.

Sea Launch have a further four launches planned for this year. In addition, its subsidiary Land Launch will conduct its first launch, using a Zenit-3SLB rocket from area 45/1 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome to launch the AMOS-60 satellite. This is currently scheduled for mid-April. The next Sea Launch mission, with the Galaxy 18 satellite, is scheduled for May.

Have an opinion on this story? Share it!

Sources

Wikipedia

Wikipedia has more about this subject:

Zenit rocket

"Live Webcast" — Sea Launch, March 19, 2008
"Sea Launch Zenit 3SL lofts DIRECTV 11" — NASASpaceflight.com, March 19, 2008
"DirecTV Satellite Launched in Pacific" — Associated Press, March 19, 2008
Paula Korn. "Sea Launch Successfully Delivers DIRECTV 11 to Orbit" — Sea Launch, March 19, 2008

Share this:

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.