Orbital Pushes ‘Cheap’ Taurus Rocket

"The iconic Space Shuttle has two launches left.
The Delta II, workhorse for many of NASA’s
scientific missions and for medium-sized Pentagon
and intel payloads, also faces retirement in fall next
year. Once the shuttle and Delta II are retired the
United States will face the prospect of a serious
decline in its ability to build, launch and maintain
liquid propelled rockets.

Into that breach Orbital Sciences hopes to step with
its Taurus II rocket, a medium payload system for
NASA, the intelligence community and the Pentagon
to use. Orbital hired the former leader of the Air
Force’s Delta 2 program, Mark Pieczynski, where he
oversaw the launch of military spacecraft for the
military and the intelligence community. Orbital
clearly hopes he can work some magic to win a large
proportion of the 50 medium class payload launches
scheduled for the next decade. “We have been in
discussion with SMC (Space and Missile Systems
Center),” he said, as well as with the intelligence
community."

See:

http://www.dodbuzz.com/2010/09/02/or...taurus-rocket/

On 6/09/2010 7:27 AM, wrote:
"The iconic Space Shuttle has two launches left.
The Delta II, workhorse for many of NASA’s
scientific missions and for medium-sized Pentagon
and intel payloads, also faces retirement in fall next
year. Once the shuttle and Delta II are retired the
United States will face the prospect of a serious
decline in its ability to build, launch and maintain
liquid propelled rockets.

Ummmm.... Delta IV (including the possible Delta IV Small, which takes
in most of Delta II-class payloads); Atlas V; Falcon 1 and 9 etc, etc.

They guy's opinion is one thing, but to be this far off the mark... It
borders on lies.

What an idiot!

I've followed the small launcher market for a long time now, and this
announcement really surprised me. I simply cannot figure out what they
think the vacant market niche is.