Land Launch, a subsidiary of Sea Launch, conducts commercial launches of Zenit rockets from Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 45. It operates two-stage Zenit-2SLB and three stage Zenit-3SLB rockets.
The first launch was conducted on 28 April 2008 at 05:00 GMT, when a Zenit-3SLB was used to place AMOS-3 (AMOS-60) into a geosynchronous orbit.
The second flight would have launched MEASAT-3A, a Malaysian communications satellite, but the spacecraft was damaged by a crane while Land Launch was preparing it for a planned 21 August 2008 launch.[1]
A second launch was completed on February 26, 2009 when Land Launch successfully launched the Telstar 11N mission.
Land Launch missions differ from Sea Launch missions in that the modernised Zenit-3SLB is used, as opposed to the Zenit-3SL, a smaller and hence lighter payload fairing is used, and the rocket inserts the payload directly into a geosynchronous orbit, rather than leaving it in a geosynchronous transfer orbit.
Contents |
| Number | Date | Type | Serial-No. | Launch Site | Payload | Payload Type | Orbit | Outcome | Remarks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2008-04-28[2] | Zenit 3SLB | Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 45 | AMOS-3 | Commercial communications satellite | GSO | Success | First Land Launch flight | |
| 2 | 2009-02-26[3] | Zenit 3SLB | Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 45 | Telstar 11N | Commercial communications satellite | GSO | Success | ||
| 3 | 2009-06-22[4] | Zenit 3SLB | Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 45 | MEASAT-3a | Commercial communications satellite | GSO | Success | ||
| 4 | 2009-11-30[5] | Zenit 3SLB | Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 45 | Intelsat 15 | Commercial communications satellite | GSO | Success | ||
| 5 | 2011-10-05[6] | Zenit 3SLB | Baikonur Cosmodrome Site 45 | Intelsat 18 | Commercial communications satellite | GSO | Success |