The last time a Zenit-3SL booster attempted to launch a satellite, the result was not of a positive nature—there was an explosion and the Dutch communications satellite became as dust. However, the old motto of try and try again certainly applies to Thuraya, a United Arab Emirates company. They are going to use the same genre rocket to launch a new communications satellite, according to the Interfax news agency.
Sea Launch’s floating platform near the equator is where the launch would occur where, unfortunately, the rocket blew up on the platform on January 30th mere seconds after the rocket’s engines were ignited. The cause, according to Sea Launch, was a loose piece of metal in one of the rocket’s main engines. However, previous Thuraya 1 and 2 satellites were all successful launches using the Sea Launch platform. By the way, Sea Launch is a consortium of Boeing, Norwegian shipbuilding company Kvaerner, Russian aerospace firm Energia, and Yuzhnoe, a Ukrainian rocket assembly plant—Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
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