DemoSat

Launch Success

Liftoff Time (GMT)

01:29:59

Sunday March 28, 1999

Mission Details

Launch Notes

First flight of Sea Launch, and from the Odyssey Plateform. Zenit becomes the third launcher to lift off from the sea, after Scout and Shtil.

DemoSat

Wiki

DemoSat was the dummy payload on the first Boeing Sea Launch mission. The Zenit-3SL booster rocket lifted off from the Odyssey floating platform on the equator at 154 degrees W longitude. The DemoSat payload was an instrumented dynamic model of an HS-702 satellite built by Boeing Commercial Space/Kent. The spacecraft consisted of just a 4.5 ton assembly of pipes and plates simulating a HS-702 spacecraft. Thirteen minutes after launch, the Blok DM-SL upper stage completed its first burn and entered a 180 km × 735 km × 1.2 degree parking orbit. A second burn 47 minutes after launch placed the satellite in a 638 × 36064 km × 1.2 degree geostationary transfer orbit. Three hours later, a third DM-SL burn lowered the stage's perigee so that it would re-enter quickly. DemoSat was to feature as a last minute add-on the NATSweb (Naval Academy Tracking Satellite, Weber State) communication payload of the Naval Academy satellite program, but the addition would have required a complete a total re-submission by Boeing for their entire Sea Launch System as the launcher's Export License (completed a year before) did not include an active payload. Therefore the NATSweb was not included in the launch.

Geostationary Transfer Orbit

1 Payload

4,500 kilograms

Rocket

Retired
Zenit-3 SL

Active 1999 to 2014

Yuzhmash logo

Manufacturer

Yuzhmash

Rocket

Height: 59.46m

Payload to Orbit

LEO: 13,740 kg

GTO: 6,000 kg

Liftoff Thrust

7,257 Kilonewtons

Fairing

Diameter: 4.1m

Height: 10.4m

Stages

3

Launch Site

LP Odyssey

Kiritimati Launch Area, Pacific Ocean

Fastest Turnaround

50 days 23 hours

Stats

Zenit


32nd

Mission

1st

Mission of 1999

1999


14th

Orbital launch attempt