Object at Sea Makes Big Splash

Looking something like a runaway oil platform, a giant satellite launcher drew a flood of inquiries Tuesday from perplexed boaters and coastal residents as it drifted in the waters off Dana Point.

The Sea Launch Odyssey, a renovated oil rig that is about two football fields long, is testing equipment for a future launch.

But some jittery South County residents who spotted the Long Beach-based vessel floating three miles offshore weren’t quite sure what to make of it.

“We’ve gotten at least 30 phone calls and another 15 or 20 people stopping by the office to see what this big thing was,” said a Harbor Patrol official in Dana Point. “Some people thought we were being attacked. Or some thought it was an oil island.”

The self-propelled platform lumbered into the waters off Dana Point on Monday afternoon and will return to Long Beach this afternoon. The satellite launcher was joined late Monday night by a command ship, and by Tuesday afternoon the ship and platform were linked by a bridge.

“We like to practice and work through a lot of systems and make sure everything is working perfectly,” said Paula Korn, spokeswoman for the Sea Launch Co.

The ship is used as a control center for the 200-foot-long expendable rocket that is launched into orbit from the floating platform. Sea Launch is the only launch company that sends commercial satellites into orbit from sea. All launches are made from the Earth’s equator, a 3,000-mile voyage from Long Beach.

“When we launch from the equator, it’s the most efficient route to the equatorial orbit, where all the communication satellites are located,” Korn said. “This way we can give the satellites a few more years of life.”

The Sea Launch Odyssey, which takes 11 days to reach the equator, has attempted seven launches over the last two years. Six have been successful, and one failed because of software problems, causing the rocket and satellite to vaporize in the atmosphere. Five launches are planned next year.

The satellite operation is a private enterprise involving Boeing Commercial Space Co., a Norwegian firm that retrofitted the oil platform and two other agencies--one from Russia, the other from the Ukraine--that work on the booster rockets.