Orbital Sciences Corp

Orbital Sciences Corp. agreed Monday to acquire Magellan Systems--a leader in the fast-growing consumer market for satellite receivers that tell hikers and sportsmen where they are--in a stock deal valued at $55 million. The deal opens potentially lucrative opportunities for San Dimas-based Magellan to start producing and marketing two-way personal pagers that would be part of a global communications system Orbital is developing for $150 million.

Dynatem/OR Industrial Computers Inc. said it has signed a contract worth more than $1 million to provide flight computers for the Pegasus rocket. Dynatem said it signed a deal last week with Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp. to make computers for Orbital Sciences' Pegasus Air Launch Rocket, which carries light satellites into orbit. Dynatem is the exclusive North American distributor of Germany's OR Industrial Computers.

An out-of-control rocket carrying secret "Star Wars" experiments was destroyed 23 seconds after liftoff Tuesday, and burning debris slammed into a remote area of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The 29-foot Aries rocket was destroyed 1 1/2 miles above the station when the booster veered sharply off course. A few pieces of debris may have crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, but the bulk of it came down on a section of the base a few miles from the launch pad, officials said.

A pair of military satellites were successfully launched into orbit Thursday by an innovative unmanned rocket that was launched after being dropped from a B-52 flying 43,000 feet over the Pacific some 62 miles west of Big Sur. It was the first time that a payload had been launched into space orbit from a plane, and the flight marked a stunning success for Orbital Sciences Corp., a small Fairfax, Va., company that was hired by the Pentagon to hoist the satellites into orbit. Lt. Col.

A unique winged rocket made of advanced, lightweight materials has been readied for a maiden launch from a B-52 jet in a commercial venture to develop low-cost access to space. The Pegasus rocket, a joint venture of Orbital Sciences Corp. of Fairfax, Va., and Hercules Aerospace Co. of Wilmington, Del., will be dropped from the wing of a NASA B-52 over the Pacific Ocean, southwest of Monterey. The solid-fuel rocket is equipped with a 22-foot-wide, 600-pound delta wing made of composite materials.

In what was billed as a preview of high-tech, low-cost space flight, a satellite-deploying rocket that will be launched from the belly of a B-52 bomber was unveiled here Thursday. The Pegasus Air-Launched Space Booster is designed to deliver small to medium-sized payloads into orbit around the Earth at a cost two to three times less than that offered by current launch systems.