The fallout from a few fateful seconds on Jan. 30 has taken several months to repair, but Sea Launch has now found itself preparing for an October return to flight following the catastrophic failure which claimed a Zenit 3SL booster and SES New Skies‘ NSS-8 satellite.

What was once expected to be Sea Launch’s biggest year with at least six planned launches will at best end with two. How quickly the company will regain its market position remains to be seen.

On June 11, the launch provider announced that its Failure Review Oversight Board (FROB) had concluded its review of the findings of an interagency CIS Joint Commission. The move essentially cleared all systems for operations, pending completion and tests of all repairs on the Odyssey Launch Platform, which is expected to be fully repaired by the end of the summer.

"The commission has conducted an extensive and thorough review of the processes, hardware and systems related to the engine and its supporting systems," said Rob Peckham, president and general manager of Sea Launch. "The Sea Launch FROB completed its work with no constraints on continuing hardware production. We are now continuing to move forward to our launch operations in October. I am confident that we have not only identified the cause of the launch failure in January, but that we are also doing everything possible to ensure that this incident will never happen again. I am extremely proud of the professionalism and diligence demonstrated by everyone involved throughout this process and look forward to regaining our launch tempo."

In early January, Peckham, had said the company was "hitting our stride" with six launches scheduled for 2007. Within weeks, the launch provider’s momentum was lost amid a dramatic explosion that destroyed its rocket and the NSS-8 satellite.

Other losses included one contract from Hughes Network Systems for its Spaceway-3 communications satellite, originally booked for delivery in July but since rescheduled with Arianespace for early August. EchoStar Communications Corp. likewise rescheduled its satellite aboard an International Launch Services (ILS) Proton Breeze-M in 2008.

In February, SES Americom announced that its AMC-21 satellite previously scheduled to be placed by Sea Launch’s planned Land Launch rocket would instead be delivered aboard an Arianespace Ariane 5 in the second quarter of 2008.

Intelsat transferred the launch of its Galaxy-17 to Arianespace, which lofted it on May 4, but Intelsat nevertheless remains contracted with Sea Launch for delivery of Galaxy-18 and Galaxy-19 in 2008; it’s also booked two Land Launch deliveries for 2008 and 2009, respectively.

DirecTV, too, still expects to launch DirecTV-11 with Sea Launch, for a delivery in 2008.

Last month, Yousuf Al Sayed, CEO of Thuraya, publicly voted his contractual confidence by confirming his company’s plans to launch its Thuraya-3 satellite aboard a Zenit 3SL in October.

"Launching objects into space is a risky business and failures are possible by any launch provider or satellite manufacturer," Al Sayed averred.

Sea Launch placed Thuraya-1 in orbit in 2000 and Thuraya-2 in 2003. Thuraya-3 is intended to expand satellite telephone service into Asia and Australia.

That contract still in place, Sea Launch spokeswoman Paula Korn explained last week that "our goal is to launch the Thuraya-3 satellite in October, based on completion of FROB- approved corrective actions as well as repairs to the Launch Platform. Currently we are working to schedule with all of these activities and we do not anticipate any outstanding issues as of this time. We would like to complete two missions in the fourth quarter, and then up to five missions in 2008. We also plan to launch our first Land Launch missions in 2008, out of the Baikonur Space Center."

The establishment of the Land Launch service at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan will provide another level of reassurance to Sea Launch’s customers, an industry analyst noted.

Marco Caceres of the Northern Virginia-based Teal Group said that in light of the platform repairs, the Land Launch option "gives people more of a … backup launch site. If you have a failure on land, it’s probably easier to clean up the site. At sea, no matter what else happens, the platform is tougher logistically. The option of launching more quickly with a different vehicle can be helpful."

Caceres was generally optimistic for Sea Launch’s chances for re-establishing its position.

"The concern initially had been the damage to the platform, and by all indications it’s not as bad as it looked [on a videotape that briefly aired on YouTube at the time of the accident]. They’ve lost a few customers, but not in droves. If they can be launching before the end of the year, the damage will have been minimal," Caceres said.

"The general view of the industry is that it’s a first-class operation," he added. "It’s not the cheapest way to go, because they can’t give you additional space like Arianespace [but] ultimately I think customers are looking toward saving fuel. I don’t think [Sea Launch] will start to offer any reduction in price, but right now there’s enough business for everyone," he said, meaning Arianespace, ILS and Sea Launch.

While the timing of the NSS-8 failure was "really poor" in a year when Sea Launch both stood ready with a full manifest and poised to schedule more, Caceres said "I think if they launch four [or] five times a year, they make money. It broke momentum from averaging six or seven [launches] a year, [but] I expect them to launch once, think they have a decent chance to launch twice, and start next year fresh."