Zenit-3SL

 
 

Sea Launch Company * KB Yuzhnoye * PA Yuzhmash * RKK Energya * Boeing Company
 

The Zenit 3SL is a new three-stage configuration offered for commercial launches by Sea Launch Company. Sea Launch is an international joint venture led by Boeing. KB Yuzhnoye of Ukraine provides the two Zenit stages. RSC Energya of Russia provides the Block DM-SL upper stage. The vehicle is launched from a seagoing semi-submersible launch platform built by Kvaerner Maritime of  Norway. The equatorial launch location is well suited to launching commercial satellites into GTO and GEO ( 6.0 and 2.9 tons).
The third stage  for the Zenit 3SL is a derivative of the Block DM stage used on Proton. The Block DM-SL  includes a spherical LOX tank, a toroidal kerosene tank around the single RD-58M main engine, and a pressurized instrumentation compartiment. Block DM-SL is contained  inside a cylindrical skin-stringer interstage. The interstage is divided into two sections. The mass of these two components is 0.526 and 0.715 tons, respectively. The Block DM-SL is capped by an aluminium interface skirt. This structure serves as the transition from the stage to the 4.15-m fairing.
KB Yuzhnoye has proposed a fundamental design change for an upgraded version of the Zenit 3SL launcher  which enable the Sea Launch company to offer launches of payloads weighing an additional 1.5 tons to GTO. The new Zenit-3SL would comprise of a first stage provided from two 22 m long, 2.2 m diameter strap-on stages. The uprated launcher would carry payloads weighing 7.5 tons into GTO from "Ocean Odyssey".
Meantime the Zenit 3SL will have to increase its current 5.25 tons launch capability by 14 percent in order to launch  an Intelsat 10 by removing some equipment and increasing the thrust of the RD-120 second stage engine.

 

 

Russia's Energia Overseas Limited company will provide the international Sea Launch consortium to help the spacecraft launch service finalize its bankruptcy proceedings. Sea Launch had announced its bankruptcy in June 2009.
Russia's Rocket and Space Corporation Energia announced that a U.S. court had preliminarily approved the deal between the EOL, Energia's subsidiary, and Sea Launch on April 27, 2010.
Energia holds a 25% stake in the Sea Launch consortium created in 1995. Boeing holds 40% in the project, with a 20% stake belonging to Norwegian company Aker ASA and 15% to Ukraine's KB Yuzhnoye/PA Yuzhmash.
The launch platform and the command ship are based in California, with rocket launches being carried out from an equatorial area in the Pacific Ocean. A total of 33 rockets have been launched from the platform since 1999, with 30 of them being successful.

 

Sea Launch Co. was formed in 1995 with Boeing Co. as a 40 percent owner among partners RSC-Energia of Moscow, Kvaerner of Oslo, Norway, and SDO Yuzhnoye/PO Yuzhmash of Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. Financial problems forced Sea Launch to file for Chapter 11 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in June 2009.
It emerged in October 2010 with a new majority owner, Energia Overseas Ltd., a Russian corporation.. It is now known as Sea Launch AG.
The headquarters were moved from Long Beach, Calif., to Bern, Switzerland, but the company retained operations at its California home port, which is managed by the U.S. corporation Energia Logistics.