CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
August 23, 1998 | DAN WEIKEL, TIMES STAFF WRITER
Around the globe, the commercial space race is accelerating like a Saturn V rocket trying to escape the tug of Earth's gravity. Private companies and government partnerships in Japan, Russia, Europe, China and the United States all have their civilian rocket programs, and analysts say that in the next decade alone, more than 1,000 new communications satellites are scheduled to be put into orbit by for-profit ventures. Now comes the latest entry, Sea Launch.
BUSINESS
March 26, 1999 | Associated Press
If all goes as planned, a rocket carrying a five-ton dummy satellite will lift off from a floating launch pad in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on Saturday as the commercial space race heads to sea. The test from a converted oil-drilling platform represents a critical challenge for an international consortium seeking lucrative contracts to launch the next generation of communications satellites.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
July 25, 2001 | LOUIS SAHAGUN, TIMES STAFF WRITER
In the Port of Long Beach, in the belly of a gleaming 667-foot vessel bristling with radar dishes and transmission towers, American and Russian scientists are building a powerful Ukrainian rocket. Sometime in the next month or so, the rocket and its payload, a communications satellite, will be hoisted onto a massive floating launch platform.
BUSINESS
July 28, 2010 | By W.J. Hennigan, Los Angeles Times
Sea Launch Co., a Long Beach-based rocket launch company, said a Delaware judge on Tuesday approved a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization plan that would transfer control of the company from Boeing Co. to a Russian rocket engine maker. The company, which uses a converted oil-rig to launch rockets near the equator, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in June 2009 after it could not pay a $52-million judgment against it in connection with a terminated launch contract. The judgment came shortly after a platform explosion in early 2007 destroyed a commercial satellite and set the company's operations back about a year.
NEWS
December 18, 1995 | JAMES F. PELTZ, TIMES STAFF WRITER
A Boeing Co.-led consortium today is expected to unveil a unique plan for launching satellite-carrying rockets from a floating platform in the Pacific, with Hughes Electronics Corp. agreeing to be its first customer with a $1-billion order.