ORBITAL AWARDED SYSTEMS INTEGRATION CONTRACT BY THALES ALENIA SPACE FOR
IRIDIUM NEXT SATELLITES
-- Company to Assemble and Test 81 Spacecraft Over Five Years at Its
State-of-the-Art Satellite Manufacturing Facility in Gilbert, Arizona --
(Dulles, VA 27 January 2011) -- Orbital Sciences Corporation (NYSE: ORB),
one of the world's leading space technology companies, today announced that
it has signed a systems integration and test contract with Thales Alenia
Space, the prime contractor for Iridium NEXT, the next-generation satellite
constellation of Iridium Communications Inc. (Nasdaq:IRDM) of McLean, Va.
Under the new contract, Orbital will integrate the communications payloads
and platforms of the low-Earth orbit Iridium NEXT satellites being built by
Thales Alenia, and then test the systems at its manufacturing facility in
Gilbert, Ariz.
Michael Larkin, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Orbital's
Space Systems Group, said, "Orbital's extensive experience in spacecraft
assembly, integration and test for customers around the world, combined
with the capacity of our Gilbert operation, made Orbital a natural fit to
serve as the systems integrator for the Iridium NEXT program in the U.S.
Our team is eager to begin this exciting and long-term program and is
committed to providing high-quality services to our customer."
"The selection of Orbital is the result of a competitive process to
identify the most efficient approach to meeting the challenging
requirements for the production of a large constellation such as Iridium
NEXT," said Reynald Seznec, president and CEO of Thales Alenia Space.
"Orbital and Thales Alenia have been working together for several years,
establishing a long relationship through multiple successful joint
programs."
Iridium CEO Matt Desch said, "We are delighted that Thales Alenia has
selected Orbital as systems integrator, which represents another major step
forward in the development and construction of Iridium NEXT. With this
contract, Orbital becomes part of the most significant commercial space
project in the world. Orbital - like Iridium - is a long-time and trusted
U.S. Government partner, which should advance the objective of hosting
payloads on our new satellites for projects such as Earth observation,
scientific monitoring and space situational awareness.
"We believe that the hosted payload concept will grow significantly in the
future as government space programs look for opportunities to carry out
their mission in the most cost-effective and time critical manner," said
Michael Hamel, Orbital Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy. "We
are already seeing numerous examples of government space program customers
taking advantage of the regularity of commercial satellite deployments and
their demonstrated high rates of reliability. In a time of tight budgets,
we see hosted payloads as great value to the customer community and intend
to be at the forefront of the growth trend."
Orbital noted that its headquarters location in Dulles, Va. and its systems
group in Gilbert, Ariz. offer an excellent geographic fit with Iridium's
headquarters in McLean, Va. and satellite network operations center (SNOC)
in Leesburg, VA., and its gateway in Tempe, Ariz.