Orbital / ATK Merger Announced
The Merger of Equals – Orbital and ATK Aerospace and Defense Groups, SpaceRef Business
“It is being billed as a merger of equals to create a new company called Orbital ATK. At first glance it appears to be a reaction to the current state of the market with consolidation and future growth needing a larger more competitive entity.”
Orbital & ATK’s Aerospace and Defense Groups to Combine in $5 Billion Merger-of-Equals to Create “Orbital ATK”
“Orbital Sciences Corporation (ORB) today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK) , which will combine Orbital and ATK’s Aerospace and Defense (A&D) Groups to create a $4.5 billion (combined calendar year 2013 annual revenue), 13,000-person space, defense and aviation systems developer and manufacturer. The new company, to be called Orbital ATK, Inc., will serve U.S. and international customers with leading positions in the markets for space launch vehicles and propulsion systems, tactical missiles and defense electronics, satellites and space systems, armament systems and ammunition, and commercial and military aircraft structures and related components. As part of the transaction, ATK will spin off its Sporting Group, which focuses on commercial sporting equipment, to its shareholders.”
UPDATE: Orbital and ATK Presentation and SEC Form 8-K Filing on Merger, SpaceRef Business
In a related story, Orbital was also pleased to announce its concomitant merger with Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama.
Another EELV entrant in the 2017 time frame?
It looks like Orbital has solved their engine problem and ATK can pimp their Liberty booster on the Antares rocket. I wonder what they’ll call it?
As noted above, I’m thinking that Athena-III might solve the problems the possible dismemberment of Ukraine would otherwise cause to their CRS operations if the Antares core becomes unavailable for a long period.
I’ll bet Athena is pretty much dead now. Why sell Minotaur and Taurus business to Lockheed?
The real loser is the people of Alaska, they’ll never see a launch from Kodiak without even MORE investment for an all-ATK vehicle.
OSC’s launch vehicles use ATK’s motors, so a merger makes a lot of sense for both companies by removing steps in the process to get the product into space. SpaceX has proven that the vertical business model is workable so those who can may decide to follow suit.
It should be interesting to see if this will lead to the ATK-built Athena-II and -III series appearing as a launch option for OSC’s customers.
OSC’s Antares first stage uses the Russian built modified NK-33, known as the AJ-26. The second and proposed third stage use ATK engines.
This is sad. Orbital still has some entrepreneurial spirit. Depending on who ends up on top at management, the resulting behemoth will have all the spirit of a dedicated government contractor….
My thoughts exactly.
Maybe best outcome is the ATK portion becomes Orbital’s efficient solids factory and Orbital still tries to do new things?
Consolidation continues…
Writing was on the wall. Disruptive technology from SpaceX would have led to the end of Orbital. Not just SpaceX but possibly Chinese, Indian and Russian low cost launch vehicles will eat into the market. Yeah, Orbital will survive by feeding off the government contracts pipeline that ATK has a strong hold.
With the current rates of change in space and in US-Russia relations, Old Space may soon be losing its grip on its former strongholds.
I think the Russian “slow motion invasion” of Ukraine with talking heads for distraction, played a part. OSC probably had to conclude that relying on Russia now for any engine for Antares was off the table. Building their own is likely prohibitively costly. So why wait until the last minute? Why not merge while your company is still worth something and not showing signs of competitive wear (which actually they might be already)?
Mergers of this magnitude are usually months in the making. I doubt the Russian/Ukranian conflict had anything to do with it.
Antares isn’t their only business and hasn’t even been going that long. It always felt like the had that program going with the assumption that it could dry up eventually so it wouldn’t kill them to lose it.
The only area orbital competes with SpaceX is cargo. No competition in the satellite business, and all of Orbitals rockets are significantly smaller. Not to mention Orbital’s missile defense business. I think this is much more about vertical integration.
Orbital rockets won’t be “significantly smaller” with ATK four or five-segment solid rockets as their SRBs or even their first stage…
About time actually. A U.S. entity with serious Beltway clout needed to counterbalance SpaceX. Who knows? Instead of 27 engines, maybe a simple, sturdy and strong Ares I / Liberty clone flying folks to the ISS in only a couple of years. From Wallops. Woooo !! : ]
I had a similar thought after I heard of the merger. Orbital has a lot of experience in integrating hardware from different sources. They also fabricate controls, avionics and spacecrafts. They were missing the propulsion systems, instead, buying solid motors from ATK for their Pegasus, Taurus and Minotaur vehicles. They buy the engines and first stage tanks/structure from Russia for their Antares rocket. Now, they could conceivably add the former Ares-1 (ATK) first stage under their upper stacks to create a new variant, an all solid propulsion vehicle. That would be interesting to see. Further, I wonder if they could compete in price against SpaceX… Again, this is just out loud thinking, without specifics… The vibration environments would probably be pretty severe so I presume it would be a screaming ride up to orbit if it carried crew. Only the boldest astronauts would ride such a beast. Any volunteers?