Posted by Ray in NASA, current, private
Orbital Sciences finds NASA contract costly
Orbital Sciences "Cygnus" supply ship: They're working on it.
Although they won a sizeable NASA contract—to resupply the International Space Station—Orbital Sciences Corp. is finding the cost of filling that contract is a drag on profits.
Orbital Sciences is spending a lot of money—including massive hiring—to rush development of the vehicles to be used to fulfill its obligations under the contract. The Taurus 2 rocket and the Cygnus re-suppy vehicle will need to be ready by 2010. They haven’t been fully developed or built yet.
Orbital Sciences will also be designing and building the launch arbort systems for NASA’s next manned spacecraft, Orion.
UPDATE: Orbital Sciences’ Taurus XL rocket failed this morning to put NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory into orbit. This was the first failure of that launch vehicle since September 2001.
