The Sea Launch Failure Review Oversight Board met earlier this month, Sea Launch officials said Thursday, and reviewed reports from investigators looking into the March 12 failure of a Zenit 3SL carrying an ICO communications satellite. As a result, the system lost pressure and was eventually unable to control a steering engine on the second stage. This triggered a flight-termination system that shut down the booster's engines, causing the upper stages and satellite to crash in the Pacific several thousand kilometers downrange of the floating launch pad on the Equator.
More recent work appears to back up the earlier reports.
As a result, we should have a clear picture of the corrective actions necessary to return to flight. A separate review of the failure by Russian and Ukrainian officials was completed last week, and signed off by Sea Launch partners Energia and Yuzhnoye as well as the Russian Aviation and Space Agency and the Ukrainian National Space Agency. A copy of that report will be delivered to the failure review board in the next week, company officials said. Once the board receives and goes over this report, as well as an independent analysis of telemetry from the launch, it is expected to release a final report on both the cause of the accident and the corrective measures needed to prevent it from happening again. A glitch in ground software may have doomed the Sea Launch Zenit 3SL even before it lifted off March 12.