Need info on Orbital Sciences Corp.
Mike McManus
I am familiar with OSC's effort with the Pegasus, but know little else about
what they do. Anybody have any additional information about the type of work
that OSC does? How big are they? Financial stability, etc.?
My wife is answering a classified ad in which the Boulder, CO, office for OSC
is advertising for an engineer to do flight software validation and
verification. Our guess is that the Boulder office does IV&V for Ball
Aerospace (also located in Boulder), anyone know for sure? Any idea how big
the Boulder office is?
Any help and/or information is greatly appreciated! Thanks!
--
Disclaimer: All spelling and/or grammar in this document are guaranteed to be
correct; any exseptions is the is wurk uv intter-net deemuns,.
Mike McManus Mike.M...@FtCollins.NCR.COM, or
NCR Microelectronics ncr-mpd!mik...@ncr-sd.sandiego.ncr.com, or
2001 Danfield Ct. uunet!ncrlnk!ncr-mpd!garage!mikemc
Ft. Collins, Colorado
(303) 223-5100 Ext. 378
Vincent Cate
Vince Cate:
>In their IPO they sold 2.4 million shares out of a total of 9.3 issued.
>The shares went for $14/share so they paid off their debts and are in
>a reasonable financial position.
The 2.4 million shares is OSC and some shareholders so not all of the
money from this sale went to OSC.
-- Vince
Vincent Cate
> I am familiar with OSC's effort with the Pegasus, but know little else about
> what they do. Anybody have any additional information about the type of work
> that OSC does? How big are they? Financial stability, etc.?
They were in the red by about $1 million last quarter with sales of about
$28 million (I think). The contractor that is doing the 7 DOD sats that
should have been launched by the Pegasus in July still does not have them
ready and currently plans to have them ready by December. This hurts.
OSC should do well in the future. They should win a contract from NASA
for 7 to 10 pegasus launches. Also it looks like they will get a contract
for 5 launches/year from the Air Force. There is a very good chance that
they will be launching replacements for Motorola's 77 satellite phone system.
I read that these had a 5 year lifetime (low Earth orbit is a harsh place)
and so this could be lots of launches (average of 15/year).
Orbital Sciences Corp had their Initial Public Offering recently
(I think it was April 24th). So they are still a very young company.
In their IPO they sold 2.4 million shares out of a total of 9.3 issued.
The shares went for $14/share so they payed off their debts and are in
a reasonable financial position. As part of the IPO they made up a 75 page
prospectus which I got a copy of. About that time I typed in parts of this
prospectus and posted it. I am reposting that now to get more milage out
of all that typing.
First my one-line descriptions of products:
Pegasus .... New winged rocket we all know and love.
* Taurus ... Peacekeeper first stage added to a Pegasus making 4 stage rocket
* Cygnus ... Pegasus without wings launched from the ground. 1/2 payload
Suborbital Boosters ..... Space Data division has done over 600 launches.
* Transfer Orbit Stage .. Booster for taking satellites from LEO to GEO.
* Prometheus ............ High ISP electrothermal booster for LEO to GEO!!
Tracking and Telemetry .. Have set up over 70 ground stations.
Atmospheric Products .... 500 to 1,000 sounding rockets/year, lots of balloons
Radiosondes ............. Put into rockets and balloons. Sold 20,000 in 1989.
Space Instruments ....... Make TAPS, CIRRIS, and IMPS for NASA.
* PegaStar .............. 3rd stage of Pegasus becomes power, thermal control,
communications, and attitude control for satellite!!
* DataSat ............... Store and forward 26 lb packet satellite! (20/launch)
* Not yet flown or sold.
Below are more detailed descriptions of the products taken from the prospectus
(there was no copyright on the prospectus). OSC's number is (703) 631-3600
Enjoy,
-- Vince
v...@cs.cmu.edu
---------- excerpts from OSC prospectus except for {} parts ------------------
{page 22}
Pegasus Launch Vehicle. The first Pegasus vehicle was successfully launched
on April 5, 1990 and placed two small satellites into low-Earth orbit. The
Pegasus air-launched space vehicle is a three-stage, winged, graphite
composite launch vehicle that is approximately 50 feet long and 4.5 feet
in diameter and weighs 42,000 pounds at launch. Pegasus is the first
unmanned space launch vehicle to be developed in the United States in
20 years, excluding modifications of older launch vehicles. It incorporates
advanced technologies that were adapted and integrated by the Company to
improve product performance and reduce production and operating costs.
The Pegasus vehicle has been developed and is being produced and marketed
pursuant to a joint venture agreement with Hercules. See "Business --
Other Contracts -- Pegasus Joint Venture Agreement."
Pegasus uses an airborne launch from a jet aircraft to place small satellite
payloads weighing up to 1,000 pounds into low-Earth orbit. Because of its
air-launched and aerodynamic lift-assisted features, Pegasus achieves
efficiency gains that enable it to lift approximately twice the payload
that can be carried by comparable ground-launched vehicles. The Pegasus
vehicle's air-launched feature also provides a customer with greater
flexibility than traditional ground-launched vehicles by reducing launch
site costs and geographical constraints, reducing vulnerability to
weather conditions and offering a greater range of orbit inclinations.
{Skipping to page 23}
Taurus and Cygnus Launch Vehicles. Taurus is being developed as a four-stage,
ground-launched vehicle derived from the Pegasus vehicle. Its design
provides for use of the Pegasus vehicle's avionics, control module and
rocket motors, supplemented by a U.S. Air Force Peacekeeper missile first
stage motor. Taurus will be approximately 90 feet long and 8 feet in
diameter at its widest point and will weigh about 175,000 pounds at
launch. Taurus is designed to be readily transported with a self-contained
launch pad, including assembly and pre-flight testing equipment, so that
launch from a variety of developed or remote locations can be achieved
with 72 hours notice. It is expected that Taurus will launch payloads
weighing up to 3,500 pounds into low-Earth orbit and up to 800 pounds
into geosynchronous transfer orbit. No prototype of Taurus exists.
{Another source claims the Taurus will cost $15 million and be able to }
{put 2,300 lbs into a 400 n-mile high polar orbit, compared to 400 lbs }
{for a standard Pegasus into the same orbit. This seems to be something }
{like a factor of 3 cheaper per pound to orbit. This implies that a }
{Peacekeeper first stage costs around $8 million or so, sounds reasonable?}
{skipping to the bottom of page 23}
During 1989, OSC conducted design and analysis work on another Pegasus-derived
ground-launched vehicle called Cygnus. The Company currently expects that
the Cygnus vehicle will be similar to the Pegasus vehicle, except for the
elimination of the Pegasus vehicle's wing and certain other minor
modifications relating to ground-launched capability. Cygnus is expected
to use the ground-transportable pad and support equipment being developed
for Taurus or the Starbird suborbital launch vehicle's permanent ground
support equipment. Lacking the air-launched and aerodynamic lift-assisted
characteristics of Pegasus, Cygnus would provide approximately one-half
the payload capacity of Pegasus. However, Cygnus is intended to meet
requirements of certain scientific and international users whose special
needs dictate ground-launched vehicle. Cygnus is in the early design stage,
no prototype exists and no contracts for Cygnus launch services have
been obtained to date.
{skipping another paragraph - now on page 24}
Suborbital Booster Vehicles and Launch Support Systems. Since 1965,
the Company's Space Data division has produced and launched over 600
suborbital vehicles in configurations weighing up to 70,000 pounds
and reaching altitudes of up to 550 miles. OSC is developing and
producing suborbital launch vehicles and related systems under several
major contracts which include: three contracts for the U. S. Air Force's
Minuteman missile consolidated front-end avionics, attitude
control, telemetry and flight termination module ("CFE") and Starbird
suborbital vehicles totalling approximately $60 million; a multi-year
contract for target tracking and intercept experiments for the SDIO
Flight Test Services Program ("FTSP") totalling approximately $25 million,
with an additional $25 million in outstanding contract options; a
contract for the Extended Range Interceptor Technology ("ERINT") target
booster with the U.S. Army totalling $13 million, with an additional
$5 million in outstanding operations; a contract with the University of
Alabama for the Prospector microgravity experiment launch vehicle
totalling $5 million; and a contract with Massachusetts Institute of
Technology for the Firebird launch vehicle totalling approximately
$3 million. The Company had recognized $46 million in revenues under
these contracts as of December 31, 1989. See "Business -- Government
Contracts."
OSC also designs and builds scientific experiments and other payloads for
launch {...}
Additionally, the Company designs, constructs and activates launch pads and
control complexes for government and university customers at many locations
around the world. {...}
{...}
Transfer Orbit Stage. The TOS vehicle is a single-stage solid-propellant
rocket that measures approximately 7.5 feet in diameter and 10.5 feet in
length and weighs up to 24,000 pounds. The TOS has been engineered
to be compatible with the Space Shuttle and Titan ELV. It is designed to
transport larger satellite payloads from low-altitude orbits to
high-altitude orbits, such as those used by communications satellites, or
to planetary trajectories. TOS payloads would typically consist of
communications satellites, scientific probes or other commercial and
defense spacecraft weighing between 3,000 and 7,000 lbs. TOS
development was undertaken by the Company pursuant to an agreement with
NASA entered into in 1983.
{...}
{now on page 25}
Prometheus Transfer Vehicle. In 1989, OSC and Rocket Research Company
(a division of Olin Industries) ("Rocket Research") began to collaborate
on the initial design of a high-performance transfer vehicle called
Prometheus. It currently is planned that the Prometheus vehicle will be
based on the technology developed by the Company in conjunction with
its TOS and Pegasus programs and on recent advances in electric
propulsion systems powered by a solar array instead of a chemical
combustion-based propulsion system. Prometheus is in the early design
stage, no prototype exists and no contracts for it have been obtained
to date.
{...}
Satellite Tracking and Telemetry Systems. Since the early 1970s, the
Company's Space Data division has built and installed over 70 meteorological
and satellite tracking and telemetry stations around the world that are
used to collect weather data and to communicate with and control orbiting
spacecraft. Currently, OSC has a contract with Lockheed Corporation in a
U.S. Air Force program to provide one Satellite Data Acquisition System
("SDAS") tracking and telemetry system for the Defense Meteorological
Satellite Program ("DMSP"), with outstanding options for 15 additional
systems. The Company is also building tracking and telemetry equipment
for and providing technical support to the Air Force Air Weather Service
and is providing certain government and commercial remote sensing satellite
systems for users such as the U.S. Landsat program.
Atmospheric Environment Products. OSC manufactures and sells
upper-atmospheric meteorological sampling, environmental monitoring
and data collection products consisting of weather and tracking
balloons, meteorological sounding rockets and radiosonde instrumentation
packages.
The Company supplies a large number of domestic and international
organizations with mylar inflatable weather and radar-tracking balloons
and with small (10 feet high) Loki and SuperLoki meteorological rockets
and other high-altitude sounding rockets used to carry instruments aloft
for collecting and transmitting data on upper-atmospheric conditions
and other phenomena. OSC builds and launches between 500 and 1,000
of these small rockets each year for customers including NOAA, NASA,
the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force and various international customers.
Radiosondes are small, electronic instrumentation packages carried aloft
by weather balloons and sounding rockets to measure selected atmospheric
environmental and meteorological conditions on a routine basis. During
1989, the Company manufactured and shipped approximately 20,000
radiosonde instruments to NOAA, various organizations within DoD and
several state governments under contracts with an aggregate value
of approximately $7 million.
{...}
{now on page 26}
Space Instruments. OSC develops and produces a variety of special
purpose high-technology instruments for an array of low-Earth satellite
and suborbital missions. The Company has designed, developed and
manufactured the Space Shuttle's Two-Axis Pointing System ("TAPS")
for NASA as well as the Space Shuttle's CIRRIS experiment system for
the U.S. Air Force. The Company is currently completing development
of the Space Shuttle's Integrated Mirror Pointing System ("IMPS") for
SDIO. TAPS, CIRRIS, and IMPS are technically sophisticated,
high-precision instrument systems that use advanced lasers, industrial
mirrors, infrared sensors and other devices that are carried in the
Space Shuttle's cargo bay to track objects on Earth and in Space.
In addition, through programs such as the Defense Nuclear Agency's
Spear II space power experiment and the Air Force Geophysics Laboratory/
Utah State University's Spirit II high-altitude research project, the
Company designs and integrates various space experiments that are
launched on suborbital vehicles.
PegaStar Spacecraft Platform. OSC is currently designing a low-cost,
multi-purpose spacecraft platform called PegaStar. The PegaStar platform
will be designed for use with Pegasus and Pegasus-derived launch vehicles.
Using many of the same systems that operate the Pegasus vehicle,
Pegastar will be built around the third stage of Pegasus to provide the
"housekeeping" services necessary to support customer-provided instruments,
communications devices and other scientific equipment in orbit. Because
the PegaStar platform will provide both the rocket and the payload with
electric power and thermal control, data handling and communications and
attitude-control propulsion capable of orbit positioning, the need to
duplicate these functions in a separate satellite is eliminated and overall
performance can be improved. By eliminating the weight and cost
necessary to provide separate avionics and data systems on both the payload
and launch vehicle, PegaStar is expected to enable a user to place
heavier, more sophisticated payloads into orbit for the same or lower
launch cost than would be otherwise required.
{...}
DataSat Messaging, Tracking and Data Collection Services. The Company is
designing a satellite-based messaging, tracking and data collection service
it calls DataSat. An operational prototype of the DataSat system satellite
has been produced and tested and is expected to be launched as a secondary
payload aboard one of the initial Pegasus launches. It will be used to
collect environmental and other data from remote platforms in the
Chesapeake Bay for the Commonwealth of Virginia's Center for Innovative
Technology. The Company has entered into an agreement with a large
transportation company to test the feasibility of collecting data from
mobile vehicles and equipment and has entered into other research
agreements relevant to a possible messaging, tracking and data collection
system. On February 28, 1990, the Company filed with the Federal
Communications Commission an application to initiate a rulemaking
proceeding to allocate radio spectrum to mobile satellite systems such
as DataSat. Simultaneously, the Company filed an application for authority
to construct, launch and operate a low-orbit mobile satellite system to
provide DataSat services through its newly formed subsidiary, Orbital
Communications Corporation. The Company also expects to be pursuing
regulatory authority to provide such services internationally. There
can be no assurance, however, that the Company will secure the necessary
government approvals.
{I think Ford is the "large transportation company"}
{ -- Vince }
Henry Spencer
>I am familiar with OSC's effort with the Pegasus, but know little else about
>what they do. Anybody have any additional information about the type of work
>that OSC does? How big are they? Financial stability, etc.?
They're starting to be into a wide range of activities, including sounding
rockets, Pegasus, upper stages (which is how they got started), and satellite
hardware. Note, by the way, that Pegasus is a joint effort with Hercules,
which also owns a slice of OSC.
Financially, things look promising but they are not out of the woods yet.
There is a lot of potential but little of it has been realized so far.
In particular, they are still very dependent on favorable treatment from
the government; one major adverse decision could sink them. That does
not look likely, though.
--
TCP/IP: handling tomorrow's loads today| Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
OSI: handling yesterday's loads someday| he...@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry