Switzerland Based Russian Owned Sea Launch AG Launch Fails

First Posted: Feb 02, 2013 09:34 PM EST

On Friday, Ukrainian-Russian owned rocket launcher Sea Launch AG confirmed that its latest launch trial failed and has plunged into the Pacific Ocean.

The Zenit-3SL rocket, failed 40 seconds after liftoff from its floating launch platform in the Pacific Ocean on Friday (Feb. 1) destroying the Intelsat IS-27 telecommunications satellite.

The loss of the Intelsat 27 satellite follows at least four failed Russian spacecraft launches since 2010. Fortunately, nobody was hurt or injured as a result of the incident.

No explanation is given at this time but Sea Launch AG says it will establish its own board of inquiry to investigate the root cause of the incident.

“We are very disappointed with the outcome of the launch and offer our sincere regrets to our customer, Intelsat, and their spacecraft provider, Boeing,” Kjell Karlsen, president of Sea Launch, said in the statement.

Intelsat-27 had a weight of around 6.2 tonnes at launch and was insured for about $400 million.

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