"LONG BEACH, Calif., April 26, 2005 — Sea Launch Company today successfully delivered DIRECTV’s Spaceway F1 satellite to orbit, completing the launch of the heaviest commercial satellite to date. Early data indicate the spacecraft is in excellent condition.

The Sea Launch Zenit-3SL rocket lifted off at 12:31:30 am PDT (07:31:30 GMT), precisely on schedule, from the Odyssey Launch Platform, positioned at 154 degrees West Longitude. All systems performed nominally throughout the flight. The Block DM-SL upper stage inserted the 6,080 kg (13,376 lb) Spaceway satellite into geosynchronous transfer orbit, on its way to a final orbital position of 102.8 degrees West Longitude. A ground station in South Africa acquired the spacecraft’s first signal less than an hour after liftoff, as planned...

The Boeing 702 spacecraft is the first of four Ka-band satellites that will enable DIRECTV to deliver more than 1,500 local and national High Definition channels and other advanced programming services to consumers nationwide by 2007."
[Sea Launch website http://www.sea-launch.com]

This site is dedicated to documenting the Satellite Development Center (SDC) team's journey over the water.

Pictures by N. Cadena, S. Beckman, O. Maldonado and C. Shepard.