Sea Launch Home Port, California

A converted Norwegian oil drilling platform is home ported at Long Beach Harbor, at the tip of a long finger of artificial land that was once part of the Naval Shipyard, Sea Launch is the only dedicated civilian satellite launch site on the West Coast. Since the first test launch in 1999, more than 30 geostationary communication satellites have been sent into orbit from this platform, including satellites for the XM Satellite Radio system. Satellites are delivered to this facility, loaded onto a special ship parked next door, the Sea Launch Commander, which along with the launch platform, heads thousands of miles south, to an equatorial launch site in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. This unusual but operational system is a joint project of Russian (RSC Energia), Ukrainian (Yuzhnoye), and Norwegian (Aker Solutions) companies, with U.S.-owned Boeing providing general contracting services. The platform has not been active since 2014, and its future is being worked out by its various shareholders in the courts.