Sea Launch Looks to Emerge From Bankruptcy in Mid-Year, Eyes U.S. Contracts

Space News reports progress on bailing out Sea Launch, the bankrupt international satellite launch provider that could end up playing a major role in the emerging space tourism market:

Launch services provider Sea Launch Co. is in advanced negotiations with two potential strategic investors and expects to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings by midyear and to return to operations in 2011, Sea Launch President Kjell Karlsen said.

Karlsen declined to name one of the investors. The other is Space Launch Services, created by Excalibur Almaz, a company founded to launch astronauts into orbit to stay at a space station based on existing Russian hardware. The company also has been looking at making the Russian-Ukrainian Zenit launch system capable of launching astronauts. Sea Launch uses the Zenit rocket to launch satellites.

Space Launch Services has been providing Sea Launch with sufficient cash to carry it through Chapter 11 but has not yet confirmed whether it has the will or the resources to operate Sea Launch as a business.

Space Launch Services officials, attending the March 3 World Space Risk Forum in Dubai, said one option they are considering is whether to relocate the Sea Launch ocean-launch platform closer to U.S. territory. A launch from U.S. territorial waters would have the dual advantage of reducing the time and expense of positioning the floating launch platform in the Pacific Ocean on the equator, and increasing the possibility that Sea Launch could qualify as a U.S. launch system and thereby compete for U.S. civil government launch contracts.

This is intriguing in that Sea Launch could conceivable compete for NASA contracts to launch astronauts to the International Space Station. NASA wants to cancel its Constellation program and replace it with one or more commercial alternatives. Other possible launcher candidates include Delta IV, Atlas V, Falcon 9 and Taurus II.

Bigelow Aerospace is looking for a domestic launcher for its private space station, which it hopes to have operational by 2015. The company estimates it would take seven rockets to launch station components into space. It would need additional launches for crews. Bigelow has looked at the Atlas V; sea- or land-based Zenits could provide an alternative.

SatNews.com reported in December that Space Launch Services also involves PlanetSpace. The Chicago-based company – which includes Lockheed Martin, ATK Space Systems, Boeing, and Astrotech as partners – has unsuccessfully bid to provide commercial space transportation services to the International Space Station under NASA’s COTS program using ATK’s Athena boosters. PlanetSpace also is developing the Silver Dart, an orbital hypersonic vehicle designed to fly autonomously and with human crews.

A recent report in RIA Novosti also indicated that Kazkosmos – the Kazakhstan space agency – is looking to make a $100 million investment in Sea Launch, which has a land-launch variant of the Zenit that flies from Baikonur. The Russians have used the Central Asian spaceport for human flights since 1961.

The investment would include infrastructure improvements at Baikonur and the purchase of shares in the Ukrainian and Russian companies that are partners in company. Sea Launch is a joint venture of Boeing (US), RSC Energia (Russia), Kvaerner (Norway), and Yuzhnoye Design Bureau (Ukraine).

Space News reports that the joint venture has accumulated $1.4 billion in debts since its first launch in 1999. The partners are using Chapter 11 to restructure the company’s debts and to salvage what they can from the operation.

You can read the full Space News story here.