Nov 13 2009
Contract Awarded for Orbital Sciences Corporation's Cygnus™ Spacecraft to Serve NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) / Commercial Resupply Service (CRS) Projects
EMCORE Corporation (NASDAQ: EMKR), a leading provider of compound semiconductor-based components and subsystems for the fiber optic and solar power markets, announced today that the Company has been awarded a contract by Dutch Space of Leiden, The Netherlands to manufacture, test, and deliver the solar panels to power the Cygnus™ spacecraft being developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation (NYSE: ORB) for NASA's Commercial Resupply Service (CRS) project. With all options exercised the total value of the contract would be in excess of $15 million.
Under the CRS project, Orbital will carry out eight pressurized space cargo missions beginning in early 2011 and running through 2015 to provide a U.S.-produced and-operated automated cargo delivery service to the International Space Station (ISS). An initial demonstration flight will be carried out as part of NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) project, which provided NASA incentives to the developing commercial launch services industry.
The solar panels to be delivered to Dutch Space will use EMCORE's ZTJ solar cells. With a sunlight-to-electricity conversion efficiency of 30%, the ZTJ solar cell is the highest performance space qualified multi-junction solar cell available in the world today. Production of the solar panels will take place at EMCORE's state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities located in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Bart Reijnen, CEO of Dutch Space: "From our joint experience on NASA's Dawn interplanetary project, which included Orbital as the prime contractor, we know that collaborating with EMCORE results in first-class technology tailored to specific needs. Their contribution to the solar arrays for the Cygnus spacecrafts will provide the highest available efficiency, optimized for the mission."
Christopher Larocca, Chief Operating Officer of EMCORE stated, "This is a significant award for EMCORE as this program will be powered by the most highly efficient space solar cells available today. We are proud to once again be part of an Orbital-led mission with Dutch Space as the solar array provider. This is a reformation of the team that successfully collaborated on NASA's DAWN mission, which is currently powering the spacecraft on its voyage to the Asteroid Belt. The CRS award builds on the successful heritage of DAWN and paves the way for more future partnerships with Dutch Space."