It's either lying or incompetence.
Maybe it's a bit of both, but whatever it is, it is at least contained within the accounting division, and has not contaminated (to date) their engineering. As tragic and inexcusable as their accounting problems have been, Orbital Sciences continues their stellar launch record, with 14 straight unqualified Pegasus XL successful launches and a completely successful Taurus launch record (their last on March 12). In comparison, their much larger competitors, and NASA, have not been doing very well lately with launchers, satellite insertion, or planetary missions.
Orbcomm and Orbimage programs remain viable, the X34 is on track, and their satellite manufacturing and space robotics businesses are second to none. If anything, I am surprised that their accounting problems have not demorialized their engineering teams to the point where they begin encountering failures. I hope this remains the case.
I remain bullish on Orb's prospects, but while all of this is sorted out, the investment risk is higher than I would like. What I have done is to buy Jan 2001 calls, and will just sit on them until the October timeframe. I will then either close them or roll them further out. |
