spacetoday.net: Orbital picks Wallops for Taurus 2 launches

Posted: Tue, Jun 10, 2008, 7:49 AM ET (1149 GMT)
Taurus 2 illustration (OSC)

Orbital Sciences Corporation announced Monday that it has selected Wallops Island in Virginia as the launch site for its planned Taurus 2 launch vehicle, picking it over Cape Canaveral. The Taurus 2, a medium-lift vehicle under development to support Orbital's efforts to provide cargo resupply services to the ISS, among other applications, will begin launching in late 2010 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at Wallops. Orbital will spend $45 million to develop the launch facilities needed at MARS for the Taurus 2; the effort will create 125 new jobs in the area. Virginia and Florida had been competing for the Taurus 2 since February, when Orbital announced that it planned to carry out initial test flights of the Taurus 2 from MARS but had not chosen a site for future missions. The decision is a blow to Florida, which has sought to attract new vehicles to Cape Canaveral and soften the economic blow of the impending retirement of the space shuttle.