The Sea Launch consortium said on Monday it has signed contracts on the launch of a European and a U.S. telecoms satellites.

The company is expected to launch the Eutelsat 70B communications satellite in the fourth quarter of 2012, and the Intelsat 27 satellite in the beginning of 2013.

Both launches will be carried out from Sea Launch's floating platform Odyssey at its equatorial launch site in the international waters of the Pacific Ocean.

The Sea Launch system offers the most direct and cost-effective route to geostationary orbit for commercial communications satellites, providing diversity of supply, affordability and flexibility for the industry's satellite operators.

It uses reliable Ukrainian-built Zenit-3SL carrier rockets with Russian DM boosters to deliver satellites into orbit.

Sea Launch AG was formed in 1995 as a consortium of four companies from Norway, Russia, Ukraine and the United States, and managed by U.S. Boeing. It resumed operations last year after a 30-month hiatus that saw passage through U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy, change of ownership from Boeing to Energia and a move from California to Switzerland.

The company has conducted over 30 launches so far. Two of them resulted in failure and one was abortive.