The Jan. 30 catastrophic failure of Sea Launch’s Zenit-3SL booster carrying the NSS-8 commercial communications satellite was caused by an engine failure, according to a commission of independent Ukrainian and Russian investigators.
 
"The intergovernmental commission … has completed its work. It has established that the engine failed after a metal particle accidentally went into the engine’s pump,” said Igor Panarin, press secretary of Russia’s federal space agency, in a March 13 statement.

The commission proposed recommendations to provide for the continued use of Zenit-3SL carrier rockets before the end of the year, which would be consistent with Sea Launch president Rob Peckham’s stated post-failure plans for two launches in 2007.