Sounding Rocket Operations Contract II (NSROC II) for NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility

Orbital Sciences Corporation, one of the world’s leading space technology companies, was selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the prime contractor role on the NASA Sounding Rocket Operations Contract II (NSROC II) program.  Under the NSROC II program, which is primarily centered at the NASA GSFC, Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, Orbital’s Technical Services Division (TSD) will be responsible for planning, coordinating, and carrying out sounding rocket missions from locations in the U.S. and around the world. In addition, Orbital TSD will work with NASA to develop and implement advanced sounding rocket capabilities to be used on the program. Sounding rockets are smaller-sized launch vehicles that conduct suborbital missions for high-altitude scientific and atmospheric research.

In addition to the NSROC II contract, Orbital has a major launch site development project underway with NASA and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. This will prepare the Wallops Flight Facility to accommodate final assembly and launch operations for the company’s new Taurus® II medium-class space launch vehicle and Cygnus™ cargo logistics spacecraft for missions to the International Space Station. Initial Taurus II launches from Wallops are scheduled to begin in 2011.

Launch operations are conducted at all world-wide permanent and temporary ranges. Missions have flown from:

• White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico
• Wallops Island, Virginia
• Poker Flat, Alaska
• Vandenberg AFB, California
• Barking Sands, Hawaii
• Puerto Rico, Norway, Sweden, Marshall Islands; Australia, Greenland, Brazil, Canada, and Peru

For further information please contact Joe Schafer at (757) 854-4672.