In the aftermath of the Jan. 30 catastrophic launch failure of Sea Launch’s Zenit-3SL vehicle carrying the NSS-8 satellite for SES New Skies, industry experts were trying to anticipate the fallout in the commercial launch market.

NSS-8, built by Boeing, was intended to replace New Skies’ NSS-703 satellite, but the loss of NSS-8 is not expected to have an impact on existing customers or revenues, the company said, adding that NSS-703 will remain at 57 degrees East and serving customers until at least 2009. NSS-9, under construction at Orbital Sciences Corp., is scheduled for launch in 2009 to replace NSS-5, which then will replace NSS-703.

This was the first of six planned missions for Sea Launch in 2007. Other missions are scheduled for Thuraya, Intelsat, Hughes Network Systems, DirecTV and EchoStar.

In the near term, Sea Launch will establish a Failure Review Oversight Board to determine the root cause of the explosion. Its results are expected no sooner than six months’ time, according to experts.

According to Max Engel, an analyst with Frost & Sullivan, that "absolutely means they won’t make their six launches this year" as originally planned.

"Even if it’s cut and dried,"he added, "it takes time. It will be months before they’re able to launch, I would expect. That will push satellite launches back." Among the primary commercial launch providers in the United States, "it’s them, ILS and Arianespace," Engel said, "and ILS is only launching Protons. It will be very interesting to see what happens. Do they get launched? Do they get delayed?"

While the company would obviously be affected in the short term, surmised analyst Marco Caceres of Teal Group, he expected Sea Launch can eventually rebound.

"Sea Launch is not the cheapest way to go," he said, but "it’s got huge advantages and it’s otherwise been reliable. Certainly you’re looking at a year’s delay, but you won’t see them lose customers for 2008 or 2009."

He added "I would think they’d have to have factored this into their business plan."

Yet Sea Launch currently owns no backup platform capable of supporting a launch. Should the review process find substantive damage to the platform, it presumptively would need to go to dry dock for repair, a process which could add to delays.

Caceres believed that if Sea Launch could manage to deliver three of its originally planned six launches before the end of the year, "it will be really good. A couple of customers will have to wait till ’08 or cancel the contract and seek another launch, ostensibly on the Ariane-5," the primary launch vehicle for Arianespace.

Indeed, Clay Mowry, president of Arianespace, said his company has "been contacted by some customers. We’re going to look and see what we can do on our manifest. It’s not easy to find slots for people. We’ll do our best to see whether there are any opportunities to fit them in and accommodate them in the near term, but the manifests were pretty full beforehand."

"There are people in the near term who are concerned about delays," he added, "and who have pressing needs."

Frank McKenna of International Launch Services was unavailable to comment for this article.

While options for contingencies exist within the industry, the launch failure caught everyone by surprise as a time when commercial launch providers were already largely booked.

Mowry explained that while back-up measures exist, they were not provided for in the latest instance. "there’s a thing called the Launch Services Alliance that would allow people to have a back-up planned in case of any launch failure.

"Say you’re on an Ariane 5: You’re backed up [by] Sea Launch and would have had a back-up integration so that your satellite could launch on another rocket."

He said he "we’ve had customers in the past who’ve done that, but I can tell you right now that none of the existing clients to Sea Launch had [arranged] that option. It’s done ad hoc, on a case-by-case basis."

Apart from Arianespace and ILS, the next likely launch providers would have to be found among Lockheed Martin and possibly Boeing, plus relative newcomers in Japan and India, Engel said.

"Boeing exited this market quite some time ago, and we just saw the ULA coming together. Lockheed Martin, if it’s not completely out of it, is certainly largely out of it [with two commercial launches scheduled for 2007].

"Sea Launch was the U.S. launch provider. Strategically, Boeing and Lockheed Martin are not interested in commercial launch. Lockheed Martin may accept contracts, but from all the financial decisions you see from [the two companies], they don’t look like they’re all that interested. For {Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s] H2A, six launches at $75 million apiece is a good year; for a company the size of Boeing, it just isn’t that much money."

Caceres warned "one of the dangers for Sea Launch is that they would lose a customer or two [since] they need to go up, and the longer they are delayed the’re losing money. "