Overview
Orbital’s extensive experience in developing innovative and reliable small launch and space systems is currently being applied to new technologies for human spaceflight, commercial transportation, aeronautical research and space transportation.
Human Space Systems
Orbital is an important member of the Lockheed Martin-led team that is developing the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), NASA’s next-generation spacecraft to transport crews to and from the International Space Station, the Moon and Mars. Utilizing the company’s proven small rocket technology, Orbital is designing, developing and building the Launch Abort System (LAS) for the Orion vehicle, an important element in vastly improving the safety of the flight crew as compared to current human space systems.
Orbital is also supplying the Abort Test Booster (ATB) that will conduct a number of tests to verify the Orion Launch Abort System. Tests are scheduled for 2009 and 2010 and will include low- and high-altitude trials to simulate aborts at various points in the launch vehicle trajectory. The tests will employ government-supplied rocket motors to boost the Orion capsule to specified test altitudes, applying Orbital’s expertise in the use of retired ICBM assets for reliable and low-cost launch missions.
Advanced Launch Systems
Orbital’s launch vehicle systems have been adapted for a number of advanced launch systems projects. This has included a specially modified version of our Pegasus rocket that boosted NASA’s X-43 hypersonic research vehicle to world record-setting speeds, and a modified Pegasus upper stage for the DART experiment which demonstrated autonomous and proximity operations in space. We are currently under contract to provide two Minotaur IV rockets to support the testing of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Hypersonic Test Vehicle (HTV) technology demonstration program.
Orbital is also in the first phase of developing a medium-class space launch vehicle, dubbed Taurus II, to boost Delta II-class payloads into low-Earth and geotransfer orbits. The planned system will leverage Orbital’s heritage of highly successful Pegasus, Taurus and Minotaur space launch vehicles to provide low cost access to space for medium-sized payloads for civil, military and commercial customers.
National Security Space Systems
Orbital’s smaller spacecraft platforms are ideally suited to serve as platforms for the demonstration of national security space technologies. The MiTex experimental satellite for the Defense Applied Research Projects Agency (DARPA) successfully conducted its mission using a new small spacecraft bus developed expressly for national security space missions. Previously, Orbital built and launched the Tri-Service Experiment-5 (TSX-5) satellite and provided the spacecraft buses for the U.S. Space Test Experiment Platform (STEP) series of satellites to demonstrate and validate new space technologies.
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