Some 19 months after announcing its intent to buy the assets of Sea Launch, Russian aviation group S7 has closed the purchase.
After steering Sea Launch into the hands of a new owner, chief executive Sergey Gugkaev will leave the company to look for a new role elsewhere in the space industry.
A Zenit rocket, flying for the first time in two years, successfully orbited Angola’s debut satellite Angosat-1 on Dec. 26.
Amos-4 prime contractor Israel Aerospace Industries says satellite is healthy in orbit and sending signals.
Sea Launch considers the EchoStar contract a vote of confidence in its launch system.
PARIS — A Russian-Ukrainian Zenit-3SLB rocket marketed by Sea Launch Co. successfully placed Intelsat’s IS-15 telecommunications satellite into orbit Dec. 1 in a launch that was made possible by an agreement brokered by the U.S. bankruptcy court handling Sea Launch’s Chapter 11 case.
The largest U.S., Russian and Ukrainian aerospace companies plan to enter the crowded commercial launch market with an upgraded Zenit rocket. The proposed partnership would be led by Boeing Co. of Seattle and include NPO Yushnoye of Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, and NPO Energia of Moscow.
