Not that I disagree with your conclusion, but they probably don't count one
of the Sea Launch failures on the grounds that the satellite made it to the
correct orbit.
In that case they'd get 0.94 realized rate, 0.88 Bayesian, and still lose to
Proton.

Murray Anderson

"Ed Kyle" wrote in message
oups.com...
Ed Kyle wrote:
The upcoming 4/25/05 Zenit 3SL launch by Sea Launch
will boost the 6 metric ton Spaceway 1 satellite
directly to geosynchronous transfer orbit using a
single Block DMSL upper stage burn. I think this
is the first time Sea Launch has done this profile.

At any rate, Spaceway 1 will, if successful,
slightly better the previous commercial comsat mass
record established last month by Inmarsat 4-F1,
which was launched atop Atlas V AV-004 from Cape
Canaveral.


The launch was a success, but the press release is
a failu

"http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2005/q2/nr_050426s.html"

"Sea Launch Company, LLC, headquartered in Long Beach,
Calif., and marketed through Boeing Launch Services
(www.boeing.com/launch), is the world's most reliable
heavy-lift commercial launch service."

I have to disagree. There are at least two heavy-lift
commercial launchers with better records than Zenit 3SL
at present, as follows.

[1] [2] [3] [4]
------------------------------------
Proton-M/Briz-M 7(0) 1.00 .89
Atlas V 5(0) 1.00 .86
Zenit 3SL/DMSL 16(2) .88 .83
Ariane 5G(+,S) 19(3) .84 .81
Delta IV-M 3(0) 1.00 .80 [5]
H-IIA 7(1) .86 .78
Ariane 5-ECA 2(1) .50 .50
Delta IV-H 1(1) .00 .33 [5]
------------------------------------

[1] Launcher
[2] No. Launches(No. Failures)
[3] Realized Rate
[4] First level Bayesian estimate of mean predicted
[5] Not currently offered for commercial launch
probability of success for for next launch attempt
(k+1)/(n+2) where k is the number of successful
events and n is the number of trials.

- Ed Kyle