Sea Launch has strong Isle of Man connections through its Assembly and Command Ship, the SEA LAUNCH COMMANDER.
Beginning with its first mission in 1999, it has become the most reliable heavy lift commercial launch services provider in the industry today. As its name suggest, from a floating launch pad, Sea Launch is able to place into orbit payloads of up to 6.000 kg.
Geographically, the ideal launch position is the equator since such a site requires no plane changes and so provides maximum lift capability thereby enabling heavier payloads or extended spacecraft life on orbit.
Since it is the only commercial provider with an equatorial launch site capability, Sea Launch offers the most direct and cost-effective route to Geostationary Orbit.
SEA LAUNCH COMMANDER.
Built as a Satellite Command Vessel under yard No. 312 by Kværner Govan Ltd., Govan, Scotland for the Sea Launch Acs. Ltd. Inc.
12 December 1996 launched under the name SEA LAUNCH COMMANDER.
Tonnage 50.023 gt, 15.007 net, 10.430 dwt., dim.200 x 32.29 x 12.0 m., length bpp 182.6m., draught 8.26m.
Powered by two 8-cyl Wartsilla Oil 4SA engines, 21.208 bhp, speed 19.6 knots.
Cruising range 18.000 nautical miles.
Has a stern ramp and is ice strengthened.
22 September 1997 christened under the name SEA LAUNCH COMMANDER, christening ceremony was performed by Mrs. Bobbie Cromer, wife of Mr. Don Cromer, chairman of Hughes Space & Communications Int. Inc. of Los Angles.
Hughes Space & Communications had contracted with Sea Launch for 13 launches, with a option for more.
Registered in Liberia, homeport Monrovia.
The SEA LAUNCH COMMANDER is one of the most high-tech, civilian ships in the world. Its mission is to launch communication satellites using Russian built rockets. Considering the intricacies inherent to rocket launching, the ship needs to remain on-station with pin-point accuracy, hence is equipped with a dynamic positioning system driving a retractable Kamewa azimuth thruster.
The assembly and command ship serve as a rocket assembly factory, while proving the mission control facilities, crew and customer cabins for 240 during sea-based launches.
An analysis of the space launch services market indicated that spaces launches conducted from the near equator zone is one way to improve the efficiency of launch vehicles designed to place satellites into geostationary orbits and reduce payload delivery cost.
In the fall of 1997, SEA LAUNCH COMMANDER sailed for Russia, where special equipment for handling rocket segments, command and control was installed and tested. Arrived Long Beach on 13 July 1998, its home base.
Here the senior partner in Sea Launch, Boeing Corporation of Seattle assembles the spacecraft, the fairing and the satellite. Boeing also markets Sea Launches launches to American satellite manufacturers, particular Hughes and Loral.
Together the ships accommodate the various Russians, Ukrainians, Norwegians, Americans and other responsible for the launch operations. Although registered in Liberia and crewed primarily by Filipinos, both vessels remain under Kværner’s control.
2007 http://www.equasis.org gives owned by Sea Launch ACS, Isle of Man, managed by Barber Moss Ship Management, Lysaker, Norway. IMO No. 9133812.
ODYSSEY.
She was built as a self-propelled semi submersible drilling rig by Sumitomo Heavy Industries Ltd., Oppama Shipyard, Japan for the Ocean Drilling and Exploration Company (ODECO).
Dim. 390 x 226ft.
Powered by 12.450 hp. propulsion system.
1982 Completed building cost $110 million.
Delivered under the name OCEAN ODYSSEY.
Her intended name was OCEAN RANGER II, but when the OCEAN RANGER (I) capsized in a storm off New Foundland on 15 February 1982 with the loss of 84 men, she was renamed.
She was designed to withstand 100 knots wind with 110 feet waves and a current of 3 knots. The derrick fully enclosed with a heated drill floor permitting operations down to minus 35 degree Celsius.
She was double hulled and had other advanced extreme-condition features as well. For example, the rig’s columns were strengthened to withstand some ice impact and the marine riser had a feature similar to a cow-catcher to keep floating ice off the marine riser that connected the rig to the well on the ocean bottom.
She was one of the largest oil rigs of its days.
Her first job was to drill an exploration hole about 40 miles south of Yakutat for ARCO Alaska Inc.
She was later moved to the North Sea for drilling work there.
22 September 1988 she got on fire still under hire of ARCO, when she struck a gas pocket, drilling the 22/30b-3 well on a prospect in the North Sea.
The radio operator was killed by smoke inhalation, he was ordered from the lifeboat by the rig manager to go back on the rig, but he failed to countermand the order when the rig was evacuated, 66 were people rescued.
The next years the OCEAN ODYSSEY was sitting as a rusting hulk looming over Dundee’s Dock’s in Scotland.
Its availability prompted Boeing to establish the Sea Launch consortium, with the following partners, Kværner ASA, Oslo, Boeing Commercial Space Co., Seattle. RSC-Energia, Moscow and KB-Yuzhnoye/PO-Yuzhmash, Ukraine.
The conversion project was carried out in two phases. The first phase from late 1995 to May 1997 by the
yard of Kværner Rosenberg at Stavanger, where the platform was lengthened and a pair of support columns and additional propulsion systems. The upper deck – the location of the former drill floor – was rebuilt to accommodate the launch pad and launch vehicle service hangar. A superstructure was erected on the upper deck to accommodate the launch pad and LV service hangar. Life-support facilities and LV service equipment were put in place. All of the vessels systems were installed, including a powerful electricity generating station, living quarters and various service rooms.
05 May 1997 completed.
May 1997 she arrived at Kværner Vyborg Shipyard in Vyborg, Russia for her second phase for the installation of the launch vehicle equipment. The following are just some examples of more than 3.000 tons of structure and automated rocket handling equipment installed by the shipyard.
A launch table.
A fuelling system with storage facilities for fuel and oxidizer.
A thermostatic system.
An automatic system of launch preparation sequence control.
A transporter-erector designed to carry an LV to the launch table and erect it; and a flame deflector assembled under the launch pad.
22 June 1998 sailed from Vyborg and via the Suez Canal to Long Beach, California, where she arrived on 04 October 1998.
She was renamed ODYSSEY, with homeport Monrovia, Liberia
Tonnage 36.436 gross, 10.931 net, dim. 133 m (oa) at the pontoons, launch deck 78 x 66.8m., height from keel to helicopter pad 58m., overall height 80m, draught 7.5m., maximum 22.5m.
Self propelled, speed 12 knots.
Crew 68. They are taken of the ODYSSEY when she launched a satellite, and taken on board the SEA LAUNCH COMMANDER, which will be stationed some miles off the ODYSSEY.
After the platform passed autonomous tests and integrated trials, the first Zenit-3SL launch from ODYSSEY controlled from the Sea Launch command ship was successfully made on 28 March 1999.
30 January 2007, a Zenit rocket carrying the NSS-8 satellite failed to launch and exploded aboard the ODYSSEY, there were no injuries.
Her damage is most superficial, though blast deflectors underneath the launch platform were knocked loose and were lost when they fell into the sea.
2007 According to http://www.equasis.org is she owned by Platform Partnership, Cayman Islands, managed by Barber Moss Ship Management, Lysaker, Norway. IMO NO. 8753196.
Source; mostly copied from Watercraft Philately Vol. 49 page 43/44 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_Odyssey and other web-sites.