After a brief delay, Sea Launch successfully sent XM-4 into orbit yesterday as pictured above. There’s all sorts of technical details to peruse, such the satellite’s 15 year lifespan and 18 kilowatts of power, but my bottom line is: rocket launches are cool.
Sea Launch successfully completed the XM-4 Mission on October 30, 2006. A Sea Launch Zenit-3SL rocket lifted off from the Odyssey Launch Platform at 3:49pm PST (23:49 GMT). All phases of the flight profile performed as expected. The mission ended with spacecraft separation from the Block DM upper stage, placing the XM-4 communications satellite into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit. A ground station in Hartebeesthoek, South Africa, acquired the spacecraft signal shortly after spacecraft separation. All systems are operating nominally.
They don’t mention that the reason for this launch is to replace satellites 1 & 2. Those have faulty solar panels which cut their lifetime from 15 years to 7 years. Once the the new satellites are in place, then 1&2 will get shut off and serve as backups.
Thanks for the extra info! I did find it strange they weren’t touting any new capabilities in the press releases and I wondered what purpose this satellite would serve. (Silly me, I was hoping for video.)
Sea Launch is just plain cool anyway. It is a very cool system.