Boeing's Sea Launch System Is Taking Off.

The commercial space business may be soft right now, but Sea Launch hasn't noticed.

The joint venture between Boeing Co. and partners in Norway, Russia and Ukraine placed its first commercial payload in orbit without a hitch last month. And for the foreseeable future, the Long Beach operation is booked up.

"We have 18 more launches scheduled," says spokesman Terrance Scott. "We'll launch five or six in 2000, and six to eight in 2001. That's as much as we can do right now."

Sea Launch's activity comes at a time when the overall commercial space business is in a slump. Due in part to financial troubles, communications companies like Teledesic Corp. and GlobalStar are having trouble getting more satellites in orbit.

"Commercial launches for 2000 were supposed to be between 28 and 35; we'll see more like 22 to 26," said Peter Jacobs, an analyst at Ragen Mackenzie Inc. in Seattle. "For (low-Earth orbit) satellites, 15 to 25 were expected, but it will probably be more like six to 12."

The downturn may last another couple of years. "Sea Launch is in a unique position, having a full manifesto," Jacobs said.

Sea Launch, which is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, was formed nearly five years ago. Over its brief lifetime, the alliance has battled investigations from national security agencies and worries about the reliability of its rockets.

Having successfully put a payload in space, it must now compete in a market in which one company, France's Arianespace, controls more than half the business.

The payload launched on Oct. 9 was a Hughes Space and Communication Co. DirecTV satellite, which will soon beam cable television programs to all 50 states. It was sent up from a converted oil platform that was floated from Long Beach to a location in the Pacific Ocean near the equator.

From there, Sea Launch can take advantage of the Earth's rotation and send up larger payloads than possible from a launch site, say, in Florida or Texas. It's also possible to put payloads in higher, more stable orbits when they're sent up from the equator.

Sea Launch says the mobile, self-contained system gives it a leg up on its land-based rivals. The rocket-assembly factory and mission-control systems are contained inside a 650-foot ship, which is used to tow the platform to the launch site, a journey of about 10 days. When the two vessels are in port, they house all of Sea Launch's operations.

"We don't have to pay to build or maintain roads as we would if our facilities were based on land," Scott said. "We don't even pay property taxes. Even these savings help us compete more aggressively."

Automation has also kept the number of people needed to operate the project at a minimum. About 300 people design and build the rockets and transport them to the launch site. Similar launch operations typically employ thousands.

Boeing and Sea Launch have kept many technical aspects of the project a secret, including launch fees.

Preparations are underway for Sea Launch's next mission in early 2000. "If you use the 'crawl-walk-run' analogy, we're learning to walk right now," Scott said. "We're in no hurry to run."