According to a press release from Governor Tim Kaine:
Governor Timothy M. Kaine today announced that Dulles, Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corporation has confirmed its selection of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS), located at Wallops Island in Accomack County on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, as its base of operations for the company’s new Taurus II rocket. Orbital will invest approximately $45 million in Virginia to assemble, test and launch the Taurus II space launch vehicle. The rocket program will also create approximately 125 new jobs in the state, which will be based both at Orbital’s Dulles headquarters and at the Wallops Island launch site.
The first mission of the Taurus II rocket is scheduled for late 2010. It will be the launch vehicle for a joint NASA and Orbital cargo delivery demonstration mission to the International Space Station (ISS). If NASA selects Orbital for operational cargo missions to the ISS later this year, those missions would also originate from MARS, beginning in 2011.
