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

(MoneyWatch)  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.