Wallops Spaceport partnership that includes ODU expected to have role in new space station resupply project

The Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) at Wallops Island, which is operated by a partnership that includes Old Dominion University, could become a global hub of space cargo transport as the result of a $171 million contract awarded Tuesday, Feb. 20, to Orbital Sciences Corp.

Orbital Sciences Corp., based in Dulles, VA, was chosen by NASA to develop an expendable rocket and delivery modules that can transport food, equipment and other essential items to personnel in the International Space Station (ISS). The company said that one of the potential sites that they would use is a MARS launch pad on a site leased from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia's Eastern Shore for the initial flight-testing and demonstration missions that are to begin in 2010.

The MARS partnership includes ODU, NASA and the states of Virginia and Maryland. The spaceport is operated by the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority (VCSFA) and its fiscal agent is the ODU Research Foundation. ODU's Frank Batten College of Engineering and Technology offers technology and aerospace engineering support for MARS.

Billie Reed, the ODU assistant professor of engineering management who is the executive director of MARS, said the selection of Orbital Sciences reflects many months of hard work by the company in collaboration with the staffs of MARS and NASA Wallops. "It's huge," Reed said. "It represents a major opportunity for sustaining a business ultimately to provide cargo services" in space. "To do that here in Virginia is quite an achievement."

Oktay Baysal, the dean of ODU's Batten College, as well as an aerospace engineer, said this step toward MARS becoming a major launch site validates decisions made at the university a decade or so ago. "We dreamed, conceptualized and worked with the State to form the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority, and we appointed one of our professors to be the director. In addition to the successful launches so far and those that are scheduled, we have been waiting for more frequent launches for a while now."

Baysal said new activity at the spaceport also will present academic opportunities. "There are several layers of educational and research possibilities, and our College will benefit from them."