Flying High on the Cheap

Sunday’s successful launching of a DirecTV satellite from a converted oil rig anchored in the middle of the Pacific opens a new chapter in rocketry and comes just in time to help the growing space-based communication industry.

This first such endeavor by a four-nation consortium, Sea Launch, is exciting news for an industry plagued in recent years by exploding rockets and malfunctioning satellites. The Long Beach-based company offers a cheaper means of orbiting payloads for telecommunications companies, which estimate they will need as many as 1,500 satellites in the next decade to provide mobile telephone, Internet and television services.

Put together by Boeing Co., the $500-million Sea Launch is designed to fire a combination of Ukrainian and Russian rockets from the offshore platform. By launching satellites at the equator, Sea Launch is able to get a kick from the highest rotation speed of the Earth’s surface, use less fuel and move heavier payloads into orbit. The location is the best for placing geosynchronous satellites into orbit, and the savings are significant.

To reduce the high cost of space deliveries--lifting a pound of payload into the highest orbit can cost as much as $30,000--some companies are developing space vehicles that will fly into space and return to be used again. But that’s at least a decade or two away. Until then, humankind will have to settle for incremental savings, such as those provided by Sea Launch.