Orbital Warns That Near Term Will Be Tight Due to Development Efforts

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BNET Government provides daily industry trends and global news coverage with insights for managers and executives within the world wide business of government contracting. We analyze new and interesting contract awards, government policy changes, and the trends in procurements and spending. There will also be discussions of the sector with a focus on small and innovative companies and business lines. The world's governments spend billions each year on a variety of hardware and services and the site will discuss how the money is being allocated.

Late last year Orbital was one of two teams awarded commercial supply contracts for the International Space Station (ISS) by NASA. Due to the retirement of the Space Shuttles and the wait until new NASA launch vehicles are ready the U.S. plans to use Orbital and SpaceX vehicles to do this mission. Right now the contract is on hold due to a protest by PlanetSpace Inc. Orbital said recently according to Space.com that due to the pressure of quickly developing and testing the Taurus 2 and Cygnus vehicles for this contract that profits will be under pressure in 2009. Once the contract is settled and Orbital begins flying missions to the ISS revenue and profits will increase dramatically. As part of the build up of the systems Orbital has had to invest heavily in increasing their workforce with associated costs. There are also worries that Obama could go through with cuts to the Missile Defense which may also affect the company’s bottom line.

Tags: Vehicle, NASA, Recruitment & Selection, Team Management, Workforce Management, Payroll Solutions, Human Resources, Management, Matthew Potter

Matthew Potter works supporting US Army aviation programs. He holds degrees in history as well as studying at the Defense Acquisition University. He has written for Seeking Alpha and at his own website, Defense Procurement News.

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