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Astronaut Gives Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus Team A Positive Customer Report Mike Stancik
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ASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio visited Orbital Sciences’ Dulles campus Monday, just a little more than eight months after the company sent its first supplies-filled spaceship to the International Space Station where Mastracchio was stationed for four months. “Thank you for the vehicle,” Mastracchio said. “It was extremely clean and when we were finished, it worked great as a trashcan, as you advised.” Not a bad report for the first customer on the receiving end of the company’s first delivery. Orbital Sciences, which employs 3,500 people and generates about $1.4 billion in revenue per year, is in the midst of a $1.9 billion commercial contract with NASA. The mission of sending the Cygnus vehicle, or Orb-1, was completed Jan. 12, 2014 and Orb-2 was sent to the only micro-lab in space in mid-July. Following each Orb’s completed mission, the Cygnus is designed to burn up in the atmosphere. But it’s not that easy to get the cargo safely to the station. “The space station and Cygnus are orbit-
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Business In Brief
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Business Women of Loudoun’s hosts its Fall Fashion Show 5-8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 23, at Belmont Country Club. Details at loudounchamber.org.
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• The National Conference Center and West Belmont Place have filled a number of key staff positions. Alan Reynolds, of Purcellville, has been named the new director of food and beverage. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America Hyde Park, Reynolds joined Dolce Hotels and Resorts as director of food and beverage/executive chef at the GE Leadership Development Center in Crotonville, NY, in 1998. In 2005, he transferred to the IBM Palisades Executive Conference Center in Palisades, NY, where he worked as the assistant general manager. He then went on to work with Dolce’s H Hotel in Midland, MI, as the assistant general manager. Reynolds then relocated to Seaview Hotel and Golf Club in New Jersey as director of operations before becoming director of food and beverage last fall at Reeds at Shelter Haven. Bhavna Venugopal, of Ashburn, is the new director of corporate sales. She most recently served as senior sales manager at the Omni Bedford Springs Resort and Spa in Pennsylvania and was senior sales manager at Lansdowne Resort prior to that. Kelli S. Mueller, of Leesburg, is returning to the NCC staff as the new director of conference
ing the earth at 17,000 miles an hour, so that’s happening pretty fast in a 0 gravity environment, and you have to come within 10 meters of the station,” Barron Beneski, Orbital’s vice president of communications, said. “So that has to be a very sophisticated spacecraft because the last thing you want to happen is to impact the station, for obvious reasons. “It’s really hard. There’s a tremendous amount of brain power here because this is a knowledge business—you have to know everything about the spacecraft, about how it operates, and it’s the people here on the Loudoun County campus that do that. It’s pretty highprofile for them because it’s restoring capabilities to the United States in space, and we’ve helped with the cargo aspect.” Mastracchio toured the manufacturing building where all the complex systems and parts are built as well as the mission control center for the Cygnus missions. The third resupply mission is scheduled to launch from Virginia’s Wallops Island spaceport Oct. 18. Orbital Sciences also is in talks to merge with Alliant Techsystems Inc. by the end of 2014, which would create about 10,000 more jobs and $3.1 billion more in revenue for Loudoun’s largest private sector employer.
planning. She is a certified project management professional and a member of the International Association of Exhibitions and Events and holds a bachelor degree in business administration from Morrisville State College and an associate in applied science degree from SUNY College of Agriculture and Technology in Morrisville, NY. • Lori Parsons celebrated the opening of her Anytime Fitness franchise in Purcellville last week. The 24-hour, co-ed fitness center is located at Shoppes At Main & Maple. Parsons said the center will offer a non-intimindating gym experience with staff on hand to help members meet goals such as weight loss, increased strength and improved balance and flexibility. The center will offer more than 14 live instructor classes each week as well as the Fitness on Request system that provides access to 100 video classes so members can experience group exercise whenever it’s most convenient. Membership at one Anytime Fitness club gives members access to 2,500 clubs worldwide as well as access to anytimehealth.com. To schedule a club tour or for membership information, call 540-441-3930 or email purcellvilleva@anytimefitness.com. • Orbital Sciences Corporation has been awarded a contract by Al Yah Satellite Communications Company PrJSC (Yahsat), the UAE-based satellite operator, to build the Continued on Next Page
Leesburg Today/Mike Stancik
NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio, right, at Orbital Sciences’ Dulles campus Monday.
“As I talk to my neighbors, they always ask what goes on behind those grey walls at Orbital—it’s kind of mysterious,” Beneski added. “Loudoun
County is home to one of the most interesting, innovative, entrepreneurial companies that are working in space.” n
Passenger Counts Down At National, Dulles Airports
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otal passenger counts were down at Northern Virginia’s two main airports in July, compared with the previous year, as carriers continue to sort out their expansion and contraction at Reagan National and Dulles airports. The passenger total of 2.03 million at Dulles was down 2.5 percent, and the total of 1.8 million at Reagan National was down 1.9 percent, according to figures reported Sept. 15 by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. Figures account for both arriving and departing passengers. At Dulles, the year-over-year decline was precipitated largely by cutbacks in domestic activity from dominant United (down 5.6 percent from a year before) and Delta (down 12.3 percent). International travel was up 4.2 percent from a year before, resulting in part from new Air China service to Beijing, significant increases for TACA and Austrian and a more modest increase for United. United’s total market share of 64.1 percent of passengers at Dulles, including regional affiliates, was down from 69.4 percent a year before. It was followed by the merging American and US Airways (4.9 percent), Delta (3.7 percent) and Southwest (2.6 percent). At Reagan National, the combined American and US Airways retained their dominant position, but saw total passenger counts down 9 percent from a year ago. Those two airlines, which will continue to operate separately for another year, were forced to divest some of their
takeoff and landing slots in order to win regulatory approval for their merger. The decline for American/US Airways at Reagan National largely was offset by increases in passenger totals for Southwest (up 26.8 percent), JetBlue (25.9 percent) and Delta (7.7 percent). American and US Airways controlled 55.2 percent of passenger totals at National in July, down from 59.8 percent a year before, followed by Delta (15.8 percent), United (8.8 percent), JetBlue (7.8 percent) and Southwest/AirTran (6.5 percent). For the year-to-date through July, passenger totals were 12 million at Reagan National, down 0.6 percent from the same period in 2013, and 12.4 million at Dulles, down 2.8 percent. Combined, the passenger count of 24.4 million was off 1.7 percent from a year before. At the region’s third major airport, Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall, passenger activity for July of 2.16 million was down 0.2 percent from the previous year. Southwest and AirTran, which have merged but will be flying under separate flags through December, remain the powerhouse at that airport, recording just under 71 percent of passengers in July. Reagan National and Dulles are owned by the federal government and operated by the airports’ authority. BWI is owned and operated by the state of Maryland. Complete passenger data can be found at www.mwaa.com. n