Under a $37 million fixed-price contract awarded in 1995, Orbital is responsible for design, manufacture, integration, test and mission operations support of the FUSE spacecraft bus. To help meet NASA's performance, cost and schedule goals, Orbital used flight-proven technologies adapted from previous spacecraft, including successful Explorer-class missions such as its Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) and the X-ray Timing Explorer (XTE), allowing more of the FUSE program's critical resources to be spent on the mission's science needs.

Commenting on the progress of the FUSE program, Mr. Dennis K. McCarthy, the JHU-FUSE Project Manager said, "I would like to praise Orbital's FUSE team for successfully developing innovative solutions that have enabled the FUSE program to meet its overall mission requirements."

Orbital closely cooperated with JHU to achieve each of the program's ambitious schedule milestones on time. The company finalized the spacecraft's design in June 1996, less than 10 months after receiving the authorization to proceed with the program. Orbital built the FUSE satellite bus at its Germantown, MD satellite manufacturing facility and completed environmental testing in February 1998. Orbital then delivered the fully-qualified spacecraft, three weeks ahead of schedule, to JHU's Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in March 1998.

Mr. Michael Miller, Orbital's FUSE Spacecraft Program Manager, said "Our team will continue to work on the FUSE program, supporting the process of integrating the on-board instrument and testing the satellite, first at APL, then later at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and finally at the Cape Canaveral, Florida launch site." The FUSE satellite is scheduled to be launched in March 1999 aboard a Delta II rocket. After the launch, Orbital will also provide spacecraft engineering support to JHU for the three-year FUSE mission.