09:43 07.05.2013

Zenit rocket launches to resume in September - source

2 min read

The first launch of a Zenit rocket after the February accident is planned for September 2013 from Baikonur, a space industry representative told Interfax-AVN on Monday.

"The rocket will put into orbit the Israeli Amos-4 telecommunications satellite. The launch is due on September 5," the source said.

The Zenit rocket of the Land Launch program will be brought back to the spaceport in July. "The rocket was taken away to Dnipropetrovsk in April for additional tests of the first stage's power source that aborted the February mission," he said.

A Sea Launch Zenit-3SL rocket carrying the Intelsat 27 satellite fell down on February 1, 2.5 kilometers away from the launch platform in the Pacific.

Sea Launch AG published the investigation report on April 29. It blamed the on-board power source failure for the Zenit-3SL aborted mission. The report said no other causes of the accident had been exposed.

The company said the power source failed at the 3.9th second of the flight because of upset operation of the pump supplying oil to hydraulic systems.

The cause of the accident was established precisely and elimination of the defect would prevent similar failures in the future, the report said.

Zenit-3SL may be used again after the adjustment, it noted.

The Sea Launch international consortium was established in 1995. Upon reorganization in 2010, Energia Overseas Limited (EOL), a lower tier subsidiary of Energia Corporation, acquired 95% of the stock, U.S. Boeing acquired 3% and Norwegian Aker Solutions acquired 2%.

Sea Launch has made 35 Zenit-3SL launches from the mobile platform in the Pacific. One of them was partially successful and three missions failed.

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