Work on Warp Drive
We blogged about getting a space job before, but now it looks like a few hundred can call their new business address "Warp Drive." That’s right: Warp Drive is an "inside" street name on the corporate campus Orbital Sciences, a company that’s about to expand in Northern Virginia, according to the Washington Post:
Orbital Sciences, a rocket and space technology manufacturer for the government and military, is embarking on a major expansion of its headquarters in Dulles, adding as many as four buildings and about 600 jobs to its campus.
The company’s 77-acre campus along Route 28 employs 1,500 workers. More than 100 employees work at leased office space a few miles down the road, and Orbital continues to grow. To date, the company said it has $4 billion worth of backlogged contracts.
"Orbital’s business is doing extremely well and growing quite rapidly," said Barron Beneski, a company spokesman.
The buildings — totaling 140,000 square feet — will house office, engineering and manufacturing space on an undeveloped tract of land adjacent to the campus. Construction on the first building has been approved by Loudoun County and is scheduled to begin in early 2008. The first new employees could occupy the space in 2009.
"The next several years we will build buildings as the need arises," Beneski said.
The federal government is Orbital Sciences’ biggest customer. The satellite company has contracts with the Defense Department and military intelligence agencies.
Space flight, in particular, is fueling much of Orbital Sciences’ growth, Beneski said. In 2010 NASA plans to retire the Space Shuttle. The company is part of a team led by Lockheed Martin that is producing the next generation of manned spacecraft to launch astronauts to the moon and beyond. The company stands to make $450 million to $500 million over the next 12 years from its role in the program.
Orbital also manufactures commercial communication satellites for companies such as Intelsat and SES Global.
"In the Washington area, there’s not a whole lot of manufacturing going on," Beneski said. "Consultants and IT people produce a lot of paper and gigabytes. We actually produce real stuff."
