Alliant Techsystems (NYSE:ATK) has shipped the Operational Responsive Space-1 (ORS) satellite bus to the Goodrich Corporation for payload integration after successfully completing environmental tests at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in Maryland. The testing was designed to validate performance and reliability during an actual launch.

After the tests were completed on April 7th, the bus was shipped on April 9th, four days ahead of schedule, to the Goodrich Corporation in Danbury, Connecticut, for integration of the payload in preparation for launch later this year. ATK is under contract to Goodrich, the overall spacecraft integrator of the ORS-1 satellite system.
ATK built the bus in just 16 months at its Beltsville, Maryland, facility and remains the only provider of operational ORS Spacecraft busses. ORS-1 is part of the United States Department of Defense’s (DoD) ORS program that focuses on using small satellites and launch vehicles to provide innovative sensor technologies to the commanders in the battlefield. The system is designed to support urgent military needs and will provide color pictures of regions selected by ground force commanders. The satellite will also use existing ground systems to process and distribute the images. The satellite bus is based on the design ATK developed for the successful TacSat-3 satellite with the addition of a propulsion module. TacSat-3 was the earlier demonstration program that led to ORS-1. It was successfully launched last year and continues to perform well as an operational resource. Just recently, the Air Force announced that TacSat-3 was used for operations related to the earthquake in Chile.

The Operationally Responsive Space Office (ORS Office) is a joint Office that spans across the DoD, services, and other agencies. The ORS-1 Program is managed by the Space Development and Test Wing located at Kirtland Air Force base with support from the ORS Office.