ATK provides launch hardware

DULLES, Va. - Orbital ATK, a global leader in aerospace and defense technologies, provided critical hardware for the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V vehicle that launched four, first-of-their-kind NASA satellites March 12 from Cape Canaveral AFB, Fla. NASA’s Magnetospheric Multiscale is a Solar Terrestrial Probes program comprising four identically instrumented satellites that will use Earth’s magnetosphere as a laboratory to study the microphysics of three fundamental plasma processes of space weather in near-Earth space: Magnetic reconnection, energetic particle acceleration and turbulence. These processes can interfere with GPS signals and radio communications and causing excessive radiation forcing airlines to divert flight paths. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., designed and built the MMS satellites. (Source: Orbital ATK, 03/13/15) Central Mississippi Note: ATK has produced more 4- and 5-meter diameter launch-vehicle structures than any other company (400-plus for Ariane V, Atlas V and Delta IVs). Orbital ATK’s Iuka, Miss., facility has 10 state-of-the-art fiber-placement machines and 11 autoclaves to handle both large and small launch-vehicle structures.