NASA LAUNCH CONTRAC WITH VA. FIRM EXTENDED.Byline: Daily News MOJAVE - NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. awarded a contract to the Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corporation Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC, though commonly referred to as Orbital) is a Dulles, Virginia company which specializes in satellite launch and manufacture. Its Launch Systems Group is heavily involved with missile defense launch systems. , enabling the space agency to order launch serves for up to 30 missions through 2010. The contract extends an existing NASA launch services contract awarded in 1999. The missions could deliver payloads of 550 pounds or heavier - such as small scientific satellites - to a 124-mile orbit. If NASA orders all 30 missions, the total estimated value of the contracts could reach $5 billion. The principal work locations for Orbital Sciences Corporation are Dulles, Va.; Chandler, Ariz.; Vandenberg Air Force Base Vandenberg Air Force Base, U.S. military installation, 3,456 acres (1,399 hectares), SW Calif., near Lompoc; chief Pacific coast launch site for military satellites. ; and Mojave. ``We are very pleased that we were selected by NASA for this important space launch services contract,'' said David W. Thompson, Orbital's chairman and chief executive officer. The NLS NLS - Native Language System contract represents the fifth time Orbital has been selected to be a long-term space launch services provider to NASA since the early 1990s. Orbital was previously awarded long-term launch services contracts under the space agency's Small Expendable Launch Vehicle Service program in both 1991 and 1998, under its Ultra-Lite Launch Vehicle Program in 1994 and under its Hyper-X hypersonic hy·per·son·ic adj. Of, relating to, or capable of speed equal to or exceeding five times the speed of sound. hy research program in 1996. These past contracts have involved launches of 29 NASA satellites and other payloads on 26 Pegasus and Taurus launch vehicles This is a list of space launch vehicles sorted by country/operator in alphabetical order, commercial vehicles are listed under their corresponding country.
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The missions covered under this contract are expected to be conducted from several launch sites, including Vandenberg; NASA's Kennedy Space Center Kennedy Space Center (Cape Canaveral) U.S. launch site for manned space missions. [U.S. Hist.: WB, So:562] See : Astronautics in Florida; NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia; and the Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Orbital's winged Pegasus rocket is carried aloft beneath a Lockheed L-1011 jetliner and released to ignite its engine. Its Taurus rocket combines Pegasus upper stages with either government-supplied or commercially available first-stage rocket motors to boost larger payloads to orbit. |
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