NSSE Sea Launch Zenit 3SL Launch 'anomaly'

What it was supposed to do

[link to www.sea-launch.com]

And the official 'what happened'

[link to www.sea-launch.com]

"The Sea Launch Zenit-3SL vehicle, carrying the NSS-8 satellite, experienced an anomaly today during launch operations. All personnel are safe and accounted for. Sea Launch will establish a Failure Review Oversight Board to determine the root cause of this anomaly. Please call the Sea Launch hotline at 800.995.4123 for further information, as it becomes available. "

[link to www.sea-launch.com]

Anti-climactic and somewhat pointless. Unless you have a point to make of it OP?

Don't shoot the messenger, I only brought the news. You make your own conspiracy out of it.

NO problem with what happened.

A signal from a kids cell phone bounced off the atmospheric inversion layer and activated the destruct 'if off course' charge.

Why are they launching from sea?

It seems to me that would create a lot of needless costs.

Too long to quote it all but this site [link to freespace.virgin.net] gives a basic overview of why a geosynchronus satelite is best lanched from the equator.

This is the bones of it:

"The Real Reasons Why an Equatorial Launch Site is Preferred

Many satellites are launched into geostationary orbit - this means that they appear to be fixed with respect to earth - in reality they have an orbital period of 24 hours and must also orbit above the equator. Launching from the equator puts a satellite straight into an equatorial orbit. Launching from any other latitude puts a satellite into an orbit inclined to the equator (so it won't be geostationary) and extra rocket fuel is required to adjust the orbit to an equatorial one.

The earth is rotating once in 24 hours - at the equator this amounts to a speed of 1670 km.hr-1 so even when a satellite is on the ground at the equator it's moving easterly at 1670 km.hr-1 or 0.463 km.s-1. The speed for orbit (500 km above the earth's surface) is 7.59 km.s-1. That's why satellites are almost always lanched towards the east. Moving away from the equator reduces this free speed - at the poles it is zero and in between if falls off with the cosine of the launch site's latitude. Thus launching a satellite towards the east from a site on the equator means that the earth's rotation contributes just over 6% to its final velocity. This is equally useful for interplanetary probes - which will also gain from leaving their orbit around the earth in the same direction as the earth revolves round the sun (by picking up the earth's orbital velocity). "

From sea it is easy to be on the equator, wich is the best place to launch (spin of earth).

OK, got beat in speed. I'm not on the equator obviously...