Sea Launch
[1] Sea Launch mothballed its ships and put operations on long-term hiatus in 2014, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
By 2015, discussions on disposition of company assets were underway, and the Sea Launch partners were in a court-administered dispute about unpaid expenses that Boeing claims it incurred.
[3] However, after moving the two former Sea Launch ships from California to Vladivostok, the S7 Group chairman stated that the program was indefinitely suspended.
[4] Sea Launch was established in 1995 as a consortium of four companies from Norway, Russia, Ukraine and the United States, managed by Boeing with participation from the other shareholders.
[9][10] Sea Launch asserted that it would "continue to maintain all normal business operations after the filing for reorganization.
"[11] On August 6, 2010, Energia, which already owned 25% of Sea Launch, announced it planned to acquire a controlling interest of 85% in the company.
[13] Energia Overseas Limited, a Russian corporation, is majority owner of the reorganized entity, with Boeing and other American companies retaining minority shares.
The company formally denied those reports in June 2014, indicating it is continuing to buy Zenit rockets from Ukraine, and is still promoting its launch services to the international market, even in August 2014.
[19] As of December 2015, Roscosmos and Energia were attempting to find a buyer for the Sea Launch assets, due to the high cost of infrastructure maintenance of approximately US$30 million per year.
[21] In August 2020, Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov told the media on the sidelines of the Army-2020 forum that the floating spaceport Sea Launch, currently based at Russia’s Slavyanka port in the Primorye Territory, will be restored.
[21] In June 2020, the CEO of Russia’s space corporation Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, said in his column in Forbes magazine that Russian specialists would have to exert considerable efforts to restore the floating spaceport Sea Launch to operation.
Ship "Sea Launch" registered Monrovia[22] after reorganising from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2010, a majority share of the company was acquired by Russian interests.
In 1999, shortly after the company was founded, the Sea Launch consortium claimed that their launch-related operating costs would be lower than a land-based equivalent due in part to reduced staff requirements.
[25] Sea Launch rocket components are manufactured by SDO Yuzhnoye / PO Yuzhmash in Dnepropetriwsk, USSR Dnipro, Ukraine (Zenit rocket for the first and second stages); by Energia in Kaliningrad, USSR Moscow, Russia (Block DM-SL for third stage); and by Boeing in Seattle, United States (payload fairing and interstage structure).
[41] The Sea Launch platform underwent repairs in Canada, docked near CFB Esquimalt, just west of Victoria, British Columbia, and departed on July 31, 2007.
Both vessels returned to their home Nimitz military port in Long Beach, California, U.S.[42] During project development in 1998 Boeing was fined US$10 million by the United States Department of State for technical violations of the Arms Export Control Act in handling of missile technology while dealing with its foreign Sea Launch partners.
At about the same time United States Customs Service attempted to block Sea Launch from bringing Zenit-3SL rockets (classified as missiles) into California for assembly without a munitions import licence.
[43] The project was criticized in 1997 by International Transport Workers' Federation (ITWF) for registering its ocean vessels in Liberia.
Investigators accuse him of illegally repaying Sea Launch’s debts and purchasing its shares to the detriment of the corporation’s core activities in 2010-2013.
