Sea Launch Commander arrived in the Far EastThe assembly and command ship of the Sea Launch Commander cosmodrome arrived in Primorye from the United States. This follows from marinetraffic.com marine traffic tracking service data.Sea Launch Commander left the port of Long Beach near Los Angeles on February 28 and arrived at the port of Slavyanka in the Far East on March 17 at 8:33 (1:33 Moscow time).The Odyssey launch pad of the Sea Launch project, transported by the Hong Kong semi-submersible transport ship Xin Guang Hua, left Long Beach on March 2 and is due to arrive in Slavyanka on March 30.Sea Launch Commander was launched in 1997. The vessel is intended for the assembly and testing of launch vehicles launched from the Sea Launch Cosmodrome.On February 25, it became known that Sibir Airlines (part of the S7 Group) registered the Space Center Sea Launch LLC LLC in the port of Slavyanka. To relocate the space-rocket complex to the Russian Federation, all necessary permits were received, including including from the US Department of State.The company said that after the transition, the launch platform and assembly-command ship will be temporarily based at the Shipyard (SRZ) in the port of Slavyanka.SRH General Director Andrei Yakimchuk announced on February 21 that the contract concluded with S7 for a period of one year provides for the repair of the platform and its parking until the company finds a base port or builds it.S7 Space is the first commercial company in Russia to provide a full range of spacecraft launch services. The company is part of the S7 Group holding.In 2018, the S7 Group acquired the Sea Launch platform. The holding acquired the Sea Launch Commander ship, the Odyssey platform with the missile segment equipment installed on them, the ground equipment at the Long Beach base port and the intellectual rights owned by Sea Launch, including the trademark.As the director general of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin previously reported, it is planned to create a Soyuz-7 launch vehicle to launch from the sea cosmodrome.The issue of relocating the complex to the Far East was already considered in 2013 and 2015, writes RIA News. Then, Vladivostok, Sovetskaya Gavan, Crimea and Vietnam were called as the location of the launch platform and command ship. As a result, in 2016 the project was sold to the S7 group of companies, which intended to restore launch activity and ordered Zenit missiles in Ukraine.In April 2018, S7 became the full owner of the floating spaceport. As part of the transaction, she got the entire property complex of the project: Sea Launch Commander, Odyssey platform with missile segment equipment, ground equipment in the port of Long Beach and intellectual property rights owned by Sea Launch, including the trademark. The total transaction amount, including the withdrawal from conservation, is about $ 150 million. However, the company did not continue launching activities.The last, 36th in a row, launch was made from the Sea Launch in 2014. After that, the floating spaceport was mothballed due to the deterioration of Russian-Ukrainian relations.
In the different photos of Odyssey, note the old and relatively new paintings on the Odyssey plateform. Yellow and blue stripes dating from the beginning, and red and blue stripes when Energia acquired all the shares of Sea Launch.
Yellow and blue are colors of Ukrainian flag, after Crimea "Reconquista" Energia decided to change logo and repaint it with Russian tri-color flag colours
Owner of Russian airline S7, Vladislav Filev, says the company’s recently acquired space asset, Sea Launch, is going on indefinite hold after moving the launch platform and command ship from Long Beach to Vladivostok. So much for that: https://rbc.ru/business/23/04/2020/5ea13ead9a79477951e55803
Why they moved it in the first place then? Only to put it on indefinite hold?
Quote from: owais.usmani on 04/23/2020 08:12 pmWhy they moved it in the first place then? Only to put it on indefinite hold? Long Beach Port berth lease was not renewed and ran out. They are looking a new US location but it will be secondary to the new Russian location. Also Atlantic, Indian Ocean launch Co-ords and ports are in planning since they are planning to support different orbits at a later date.
Quote from: russianhalo117 on 04/23/2020 08:35 pmQuote from: owais.usmani on 04/23/2020 08:12 pmWhy they moved it in the first place then? Only to put it on indefinite hold? Long Beach Port berth lease was not renewed and ran out. They are looking a new US location but it will be secondary to the new Russian location. Also Atlantic, Indian Ocean launch Co-ords and ports are in planning since they are planning to support different orbits at a later date.In his interview Filev stated that port fees in Russia were as twice more than in California and Sea Launch project is frozen until better times. It seems to be that Roscosmos might decide to nationalise project otherwise it would be either put on hold (conservation) until suitable LV would be developed and tested or in worst case scenario maritime assets would be available for sale (again) .
Quote from: fregate on 04/24/2020 01:43 amQuote from: russianhalo117 on 04/23/2020 08:35 pmQuote from: owais.usmani on 04/23/2020 08:12 pmWhy they moved it in the first place then? Only to put it on indefinite hold? Long Beach Port berth lease was not renewed and ran out. They are looking a new US location but it will be secondary to the new Russian location. Also Atlantic, Indian Ocean launch Co-ords and ports are in planning since they are planning to support different orbits at a later date.In his interview Filev stated that port fees in Russia were as twice more than in California and Sea Launch project is frozen until better times. It seems to be that Roscosmos might decide to nationalise project otherwise it would be either put on hold (conservation) until suitable LV would be developed and tested or in worst case scenario maritime assets would be available for sale (again) .Or maybe both the Commander and Odyssey are heading for the scrapyard in near future
My opinion:The powers-that-be in Russia felt is was more important to park the Sea Launch hardware in mothballs in a Russian port for an indefinite period, even for greater annual costs; rather than in Long Beach, or a third party port.***
https://twitter.com/katlinegrey/status/1270602036770414598
