Abstract
Founded in 1982 as an alternative to conventional aerospace contracting, Orbital Sciences grew into a distinguishable commercial space undertaking with over $700 million in annual revenues and only one-third of its work drawn from the U.S. government. McCurdy explains how rough times eventually forced the company to return to government awards. Orbital won a NASA award to deliver cargo to the International Space Station but failed to qualify for the prized crew transport awards. Three decades after its founding, Orbital Sciences disappeared, absorbed into a conventional aerospace firm doing most of its work under contract to the U.S. government. The Orbital story demonstrates how difficult the maintenance of commercial independence can be even for an established new space firm.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Johnson Space Center, NASA JSC Solicitation: Recovery Act – Commercial Crew Development, Solicitation Number JSC-CCDev-1, August 5, 2009: 10.
- 2.
Geoffrey L. Yoder, Selection Statement for Commercial Crew Development (Announcement Number JSC-CCDev-1), December 8, 2009.
- 3.
NASA, Commercial Crew and Cargo, CP30, March 7, 2012.
- 4.
Yoder, Selection Statement for Commercial Crew Development: 1.
- 5.
NASA, Commercial Orbiter Transportation Services: 33.
- 6.
Andy Pasztor, “Orbital Proposes Spaceplane for Astronauts,” Wall Street Journal (December 17, 2010).
- 7.
Philip R. McAlister, Selection Statement for Commercial Crew Development Round 2 (Announcement Number NASA-CCDev-2), April 4, 2011: 15.
- 8.
McAlister, Selection Statement for Commercial Crew Development Round 2: 15. On Sierra Nevada, see also Michael Behar, “The Other Guys,” Air&Space (July 2013).
- 9.
John M. Logsdon, “Encouraging New Space Firms,” in NASA Spaceflight: A History of Innovation, ed. by Roger D. Launius and Howard E. McCurdy, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; Lou Dobbs, Space: the Next Business Frontier. Pocket Books, 2001; Howard E. McCurdy, The Space Station Decision: Incremental Politics and Technological Choice. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990; U.S. White House, The President’s Space Policy and Commercial Space Initiative to Begin the Next Century, February 11, 1988.
- 10.
Substantial detail regarding the financial history of the company can be found in a special corporate publication, Dave Thompson et al., An Adventure Begins: Orbital’s First 25 Years. Orbital Sciences Corporation, 2007. See also Gary Dorsey, Silicon Sky: How One Small Start-Up Went Over the Top to Beat the Big Boys into Satellite Heaven. Reading, MA: Perseus Books, 1999; and Logsdon, “Encouraging New Space Firms.”
- 11.
Agreement for the Commercial Development and Operational Use of the Transfer Orbit Stage between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Orbital Systems Corporation, April 18, 1983. Officially, the agreement did not obligate NASA to purchase any vehicle hardware or services from Orbital, but the agreement to forgo development of a competing vehicle sent a strong signal to investors that NASA would be a prime customer for the system if Orbital could build and successfully test it. See Logsdon, “Encouraging New Space Firms.”
- 12.
Garrett Pierce, “No Bucks, No Buck Rogers (1988–2003),” in Thompson, An Adventure Begins: 100. FundingUniverse.com reports that Orbital raised $32.5 million in its initial public offering. FundingUniverse, Orbital Sciences Corporation History, <fundinguniverse.com> n.d. (accessed April 28, 2017).
- 13.
Being a publicly traded company, substantial financial information can be found in Orbital’s annual report filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. See Securities and Exchange Commission, Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1999, Orbital Sciences Corporation. The annual report for 2000 changes the 1999 government share to 39 percent and lists the 2000 share at 34 percent.
- 14.
Thompson, An Adventure Begins: 102.
- 15.
Orbital Sciences Corporation, 2006 Annual Report, 2007: 7.
- 16.
NASA, Commercial Orbital Transportation Services: 69; Statement of William H. Gerstenmaier, Associate Administrator for Space Operations before the Committee on Science, Space and Technology, Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, U.S. House of Representatives, May 26, 2011. NASA followed an initial award of $170 million with additional milestones that brought the total award to $288 million; Space Act Agreement Between National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Orbital Corporation for Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Demonstration (COTS), February 19, 2008, with amendments; NASA, Contract Release: C08-069, NASA Awards Space Station Commercial Resupply Services Contracts, December 23, 2008.
- 17.
Orbital Sciences Corporation, 2010 Annual report; 2013 Annual Report. The figures for 2013 are 63 percent defense, 14 percent NASA, 10 percent other U.S. government, plus 13 percent commercial and foreign customers.
- 18.
The Boeing Company, 2010 Annual Report: 8.
- 19.
Sally Richardson, “To the Moon and Beyond,” in Thompson, An Adventure Begins: 122.
- 20.
“I would not anticipate a lot of activity on our part in the commercial crew market.” Dave Thompson, quoted in Jeff Foust, “Orbital may wind down its commercial crew effort,” <newspacejournal.com> April 22, 2011.
- 21.
Northrop Grumman, News Release, Northrop Grumman to Acquire Orbital ATK for $9.2 Billion, September 18, 2017; Sandra Erwin, “Acquisition of Orbital ATK approved, company renamed Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems,” SpaceNews (June 5, 2018).
- 22.
In 2016, NASA officials selected the Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser to deliver cargo to the International Space Station. NASA release 16-007, NASA Awards International Space Station Cargo Transport Contracts, January 14, 2016.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
McCurdy, H.E. (2019). Orbital Sciences: The Challenge of Breaking Away from Government Contracts as a Source of Revenue Flow. In: Financing the New Space Industry. Palgrave Studies in the History of Science and Technology. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32292-2_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32292-2_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-32291-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-32292-2
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)