Orbital Sciences Corporation has announced plans for a $50-plus million, multi-year expansion of its satellite-related engineering, manufacturing and operations facilities adjacent to the company’s current headquarters site in Dulles, Va. At an event hosted by the company and attended by Virginia Governor James S. Gilmore, III and other prominent state and county government officials, the company detailed plans for the new facilities that will be constructed in two phases during 1998-1999 and 2000-2001. The new construction will increase Orbital’s office, laboratory and industrial space at its Dulles campus more than fourfold, to over 750,000 square feet, and expand its operations from two
to seven buildings on nearly 50 acres of company-owned land. Orbital’s campus is located approximately four miles north of Dulles International Airport in Loudoun County, Virginia.
The new facilities, the first of which is scheduled to open in September
1999, will allow the company to consolidate its existing Northern Virginia
work force of over 1,000 people, now located at five separate locations, to a single integrated site. The expanded facilities will also accommodate
Orbital’s potential staffing growth of 1,000 to 1,500 additional employees in newly-created jobs over the next three years.
Speaking at Orbital’s corporate offices, Virginia’s Governor Gilmore said, “The Commonwealth of Virginia is committed to maintaining a business climate that encourages world-class companies like Orbital to expand their operations and create numerous job opportunities. Already, Northern Virginia has one of the country’s greatest concentrations of high-tech companies, with a highly-educated and technically-skilled labor force. With companies like Orbital leading the way, Virginia is well-positioned to aggressively compete in the new technology-focused global economy of the 21st Century.”
Mr. David W. Thompson, Orbital’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer,
added, “The expansion of our R&D, manufacturing and support facilities
reflects the tremendous success we have had over the past several years in
building up a backlog of orders for our space systems that now stands at over $3.5 billion. As Orbital has emerged as a worldwide force in the market for advanced space systems and satellite-delivered services, we need to ensure that our industrial capacity is adequate to support our rapid growth and that we provide our employees with resources that are as state-of-the- art as the products they create and build.”
The centerpiece of Orbital’s Dulles campus will be a 175,000 square foot
satellite assembly, integration and test facility that will support nearly two and a half times the company’s current spacecraft manufacturing volume. About three times larger than the existing satellite “high-bay” facility at Dulles, the new integrated satellite factory will permit Orbital to design, manufacture and test its full line of advanced technology small- and medium- class satellite platforms. It will be capable of supporting the approximately 55 communications, remote sensing, scientific and defense-related satellites in Orbital’s contract backlog or now under development, while also providing additional manufacturing capacity for future growth.
The new satellite manufacturing facility will consist of several major
areas:
- Assembly and Integration Bays: On the main factory floor, the
company will operate separate “high-bay” areas for fabrication, assembly and integration of structures, electronics, propulsion and power systems, and communications and imaging payloads. - Testing Bays: Containing dual thermal-vacuum chambers, a thermal
stress/cycle chamber, a vibration/shock test area, a mass properties
laboratory, and a near-field antenna range, the facility’s rigorous testing
capabilities will allow Orbital to simulate the conditions of launch and the environment of space to assure that each satellite performs successfully once it is placed in orbit. - Satellite Control Centers: Three fully-equipped satellite control
rooms will permit Orbital’s engineers to support satellite in-orbit check-out and long-term space mission operations.
“This new, ultra-modern facility will be one of only a few of its kind in
the world,” added Mr. Thompson. “The expanded capacity will allow us to
increase our satellite production rates and shorten our manufacturing cycle
times. At the same time, our work force will be able to operate at maximum
efficiency, while continuing to improve the quality and reliability of our
satellites,” he said.
In related developments, Orbital’s satellite services affiliates, ORBCOMM Global, L.P. and ORBIMAGE, will also benefit from larger, more efficient technical, operational and administrative facilities in the new campus. With its worldwide Network Control Center already located at the existing Dulles facility, ORBCOMM will have additional space to expand its technical, marketing and customer support staff as it prepares to provide satellite-based data communications to customers in countries all over the world. Similarly, ORBIMAGE will build a new satellite control center and an ultra-modern image processing and archiving operation at the new Dulles campus.
