Alliant Techsystems (NYSE: ATK) recently completed a successful on-pad assembly, or pathfinder operation, of an ATK-designed launch vehicle, the ALV. This significant milestone keeps the company on schedule to fly its first mission — designated ALV X-1 — in 2007.
Next year’s ALV X-1 flight is part of ATK’s plan to develop a low-cost launch vehicle for the operational responsive space (ORS) market. Possible ORS programs include the delivery of small payloads to low-earth orbit in support of DOD missions, NASA scientific missions, and commercial and university satellite programs.
“The completion of our pathfinder operation builds on last year’s successful sounding rocket flight test and brings us one step closer to realizing our goal of developing an affordable launch vehicle that supports numerous military, scientific and commercial missions,” said Charlie Precourt, Vice President of Strategy and Business Development, ATK Launch Systems Group. “By incorporating off-the-shelf components and technologies into the program and minimizing ground support requirements, we believe ATK can offer our customers a reliable and low life-cycle cost launch vehicle.”
During its inaugural flight, the ALV will carry a hypersonic boundary layer transition experiment (Hy-BoLT) payload sponsored by NASA’s Hypersonics Project within the Fundamental Aeronautics Program. A secondary payload consisting of a suborbital aerodynamic re-entry experiment (SOAREX) is being developed by NASA Ames. The inaugural flight of the ALV will be launched from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, located at NASA’s Wallops Island Flight Facility.
ATK is a $3.4 billion advanced weapon and space systems company employing approximately 15,000 people in 22 states. News and information can be found on the Internet at http://www.atk.com .
Certain information discussed in this press release constitutes forward- looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although ATK believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurance that its expectations will be achieved. Forward-looking information is subject to certain risks, trends and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Among those factors are: the unique challenges of developing new launch vehicles, changes in governmental spending, budgetary policies and product sourcing strategies; the company’s competitive environment; the terms and timing of awards and contracts; and economic conditions. ATK undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. For further information on factors that could impact ATK, and statements contained herein, please refer to ATK’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and any subsequent quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
