MOSCOW. July 20 (Interfax-AVN) - The Sea Launch AG operator, launching satellites from the floating spaceport with Zenit-SL rockets, is in talks with the Chinese government on selling the Sea Launch command ship and launch platform, says a report published on the specialized website www.spacenews.com with the reference to 'industry officials'.
"A sale to China would need to traverse a minefield of regulatory and political issues in Russia, China and the United States," including the regime of control over the transfer of rocket technologies, the report said.
A source in the Russian rocket and space industry told Interfax-AVN, "the deal would be impossible without settling the legal dispute with Boeing."
Until now the vessels of Sea Launch AG have been based in Long Beach, California, United States. Zenit launch vehicles have been built for the Sea Launch program by the Dnipropetrovsk-based Yuzhmash plant, and the vehicles have been powered by Russian rocket engines. Cooperation of this kind does not seem possible against the backdrop of present-day political realities.
It was reported previously that China was interested in buying Russian rocket engines developed and manufactured by NPO Energomash.
As of today, Sea Launch has performed 36 Zenit missions, 33 of which have been successful.
In the opinion of the expert from the Russian rocket and space industry, "Sea Launch is a unique robotic spaceport which has no analogues in the world." "Besides, it helps provide technological sustainability of domestic enterprises and preserve technological groundwork that may later be used to design super-heavy-lift launch vehicles, primarily, in the field of propulsion engineering," he said.
"Those who are trying to get rid of the Sea Launch project are staging a direct act of technological sabotage against enterprises providing the few remaining competitive advantages of Russian cosmonautics. First of all, this is NPO Energomash, which produces the most efficient liquid-fuel rocket engines in the world," the expert said.
Zenit-3SL launches are run by the Sea Launch consortium, formed in 1995. Following reorganization in 2010, a 95% stake went to Energia Overseas Limited (EOL), Energia Space Corporation's subsidiary; 3% to the American Boeing and 2% to Norway's Aker Solutions. The Sea Launch AG is headquartered in Nyon, Switzerland.
The Zenit-3SL launch vehicle is based on the two-stage carrier rocket Zenit-2, developed by Yuzhnoye Design Bureau (Ukraine). The upper stage DM-SL was developed and made by Energia.
There is information that U.S.-based Boeing has filed a lawsuit against Russian partners in a California court, which may deprive Russia of the seaborne spaceport with a current value of $2 billion.
"It is most important to prevent the selling of Sea Launch 'for making needles', i.e. dirt-cheap as scrap metal, as that happened to the Minsk aircraft carrier sold for $16 million and attached to the Chinese Navy after modernization," the Russian expert said.