Orbital Sciences

Orbital Sciences Corporation was a Dulles, Virginia heritage satellite and launch-vehicle manufacturer founded in 1982.^[1] It is no longer active as an independent supplier: the company combined with aerospace and defense groups to form a successor company in 2015, and that successor was acquired in 2018.^[1][2] In EO contexts, Orbital's relevant heritage is spacecraft manufacturing, including OrbView commercial imaging satellites, science and environmental spacecraft, and small-launch systems such as Pegasus and Minotaur.^[3][1] The row is useful for legacy mission attribution, supplier lineage and historic launch-service context, while current procurement belongs with the active successor organisation rather than Orbital as an independent vendor.^[2]