aussiew Posted January 31, 2007 Posted January 31, 2007 Most people who use communications every day don't pay much attention to satellites. But, since I work for a company in the industry we are aware of how many years and how much money goes into designing, building and launching a satellite. It's heartbreaking for the hundreds of techies who worked for so many years to watch it explode. I don't have the U-Tube link showing the explosion, but if anyone is interested - it's on there somewhere. "Dear Colleagues, As you are aware, we experienced a launch failure resulting in the total loss of the NSS-8 satellite. NSS-8 was designed to provide replacement and expansion capacity for our satellite fleet in the Indian Ocean Region. Despite the set-back, the launch failure will not alter our capacity to provide services to SES NEW SKIES' customers, using the existing fleet in orbit. Existing services will suffer no interruption. NSS-703 will now stay at 57° East to ensure continuity of services to its customers. And we have a contingency plan for the period beyond the end of life of NSS-703: we have begun construction of NSS-9, which is intended to free up NSS-5, which in turn will then be relocated to 57° East to replace NSS-703. And there is no change to our commitment to expand our fleet in this orbital arc. Over the coming weeks, we will review our options in order to decide on a replacement craft for NSS-8 to ensure growth in this region. Financially speaking, the launch failure will have a marginal impact on our expected revenues in 2007. However, as NSS-8 was a major plank in our ambitious capacity expansion plan, the launch failure is reducing growth potential for the period 2008-2009. On the cost side, the fall-out is also limited. As SES NEW SKIES had concluded an 'in-orbit-delivery" contract with the manufacturer, the spacecraft was planned to be financed over its lifetime, based on its successful operation. And as the spacecraft was insured by the manufacturer, we neither had to bear insurance premiums, nor will we be entitled to insurance payments. At this point in time, it is needless to speculate on the possible technical causes of the launch failure. An investigation commission will be set up, and preliminary results are not expected before the end of this week. More information will be shared with you as soon as they become available. The launch of NSS-8 was supposed to mark the culmination point of a long procurement and construction programme for one of the most powerful and versatile communications satellites ever built. I share the pain and frustration of all of you and would like to thank the colleagues involved in the NSS-8 programme for their efforts to deliver the satellite. However, I would also like to echo Rob Bednarek's earlier note to all SES NEW SKIES colleagues and say that now is not a time to despair, but a time to display the character of our organization, get back to the planning boards and create a new version of our plan to grow our exciting business in the region".
Nanker Posted February 1, 2007 Posted February 1, 2007 Something similar occurred a few years back when the Chinese were contracted to launch some of our com sats. Of course the critical guidance mechanism boxes were never found in the wreckage - if they ever actually made it into the doomed rocket to begin with. The wonderful thing about that is that now China has excellent guidance systems for their rockets and have been developing "Star Wars" type technology ever since. From the feed it sounds like this launch was not done in US territory. No worries. We don't have any enemies anymore.
KD in CA Posted February 1, 2007 Posted February 1, 2007 Something similar occurred a few years back when the Chinese were contracted to launch some of our com sats. Of course the critical guidance mechanism boxes were never found in the wreckage - if they ever actually made it into the doomed rocket to begin with. The wonderful thing about that is that now China has excellent guidance systems for their rockets and have been developing "Star Wars" type technology ever since. From the feed it sounds like this launch was not done in US territory. No worries. We don't have any enemies anymore. Just as long as there are no Arabs at the ports, everything is ok.
ExiledInIllinois Posted February 2, 2007 Posted February 2, 2007 Just as long as there are no Arabs at the ports, everything is ok. Good thing their not contracting out my job to 'em! Call 'em what you want Tom... Where one has easy access to flooding cities, shore refineries and million of tons of petrochemicals floating around our ecosystems... Not to mention the drinking water of 3 million people... We will just let the gov't handle those ugly tasks...
TheMadCap Posted February 2, 2007 Posted February 2, 2007 The company is Sealaunch, which as the name would suggest, tow the rocket launch pad out to the equator in the pacific and launch commercial payloads. This is thier second launch failure. I would remind everyone that launching rockets is heady stuff, hence, that's why it's called rocket science. I am by no means an expert, but from the video, it looks to me like the failure was caused by a blown turbopump. That's what I would put my money on. NASASPACEFLIGHT.COM has the full video for anyone interested.
TheMadCap Posted February 10, 2007 Posted February 10, 2007 Looks like the cause has been determined to be a faulty LOX valve, or a ruptured LOX feedline. This caused the LOX tank to lose pressure, cutting off the engine. When rocket engines are running without fuel, you see the result...
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