Orbital Sciences Corp. is considering building a new type of vehicle to add to its launch rocket portfolio next year.
The Taurus II would be a medium-capacity rocket that would compete with or replace Boeing’s similar Delta II vehicle.
The launch vehicles are used to boost satellites into space.
Rockets have differing capacities depending on how large a satellite each can handle. The Dulles company already builds rockets that handle smaller loads.
Orbital spokesman Barry Boneski said Thursday the company first would target government customers for the Taurus II.
The Delta II is the only rocket serving the government. But the U.S. Air Force plans to stop using it by the end of 2008 in favor of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle it is developing.
Industry membershave speculated that Delta II will be retired after the Air Force stops using it.
But Julie Andrews, spokeswoman for United Launch Alliance, the joint venture between Boeing and Bethesda company Lockheed Martin, said ULA has no immediate plans to retire Delta II.
“I know there are some perceptions out there that ULA is getting out of the Delta II business,” Andrews said. But the company has NASA and some commercial clients, she said, and is exploring other uses for the vehicle.
Andrews said the company’s policy is not to disclose the cost of a Delta II launch, but analysts have estimated it at about $70 million.
“The government definitely needs something other than the major boosters they have out there,” said Paul Nisbet, an analyst with JRA Research in Newport, R.I., who follows Orbital. “They’re very expensive, and they’re overkill if you want to launch just one regular-sized satellite.”
Boneski said Orbital is aiming to create a rocket that would cost half as much as a Delta II to launch.
“It seems to us that a void will exist that could be filled by a lower-cost alternative,” he said.
“If this ends up being what they are touting it to be, I think it would spell the end of the Delta II, ultimately,” Nisbet said.
The Taurus II would require an investment of $40 million to $45 million next year, according to the company’s financial statements. Boneski said.
Orbital would aim to book its first contracts in 2008 and stage a first launch during the first half of 2010.
