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Satnews Daily
April 11th, 2016

Orbital ATK En Route To Major Event And Also The Recipient Of A Major NASA Sounding Contract


Orbital ATK, Inc. (NYSE: OA) plans to spotlight their wide array of space systems products and capabilities at the upcoming 32nd Space Symposium, hosted by the Space Foundation, at booth 715.

The 32nd Space Symposium (32SS) occurs from April 11 to 14 at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Orbital ATK display will present the firm's innovative, affordable and reliable space products and services for civil government, national security, commercial and international customers.

Featured in their exhibit will be industry leading space launch vehicles as well as related rocket propulsion systems. Also on display and available for discussion will be satellite platforms and their associated components and services, space logicistics systems, composite aerospace structures for launch vehicles, spacecraft components and more.

Visitors to the Orbital ATK exhibit will be able to glean information regarding all of the aforementioned offerings via videos, fact sheets and product model displays. Additionally, Orbital ATK subject matter experts will be on hand and available to answer questions and to provide additional information regarding attendee queries.

There is also good reason for Orbital ATK to celebrate, as the firm has been selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as the prime contractor for the NASA Sounding Rockets Operations Contract III (NSROC III) program.

The award is a one-year base contract with four one-year option periods and is valued at approximately $200 million. Orbital ATK won the new contract in an open competition and has served as the prime contractor on the program since 2010. During that time, the company supported 94 sounding rocket launches and set the record for 41 consecutive successful missions, the most in the 57 year history of the program. Sounding rockets are used to conduct suborbital missions for scientific and atmospheric research.

Under the NSROC III program, which is centered at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia and the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, Orbital ATK’s Technical Services division will plan, coordinate and carry out suborbital research rocket missions from locations in the United States and around the world. The Orbital ATK team will also work with the NASA Sounding Rockets program to develop and implement additional capabilities.

Orbital ATK and the firm's teammates expect to employ technical and administrative staff at Wallops Flight Facility and White Sands Missile Range over the term of the contract. Orbital ATK’s teammates include three small businesses: LJT and Associates, Inc., the Hammers Company, and Hawk Institute for Space Sciences.

In addition to NSROC III, the company supports another high-altitude scientific research program for NASA, as the company is  the prime contractor for the NASA Balloon Operations contract. This program is administered by the Goddard Space Flight Center’s Wallops Flight Facility and is managed from the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) in Palestine, Texas. The CSBF staff has launched more than 1,700 scientific balloons from seven countries over the past 35 years.