Sattelite Servicing Company U.S. Space Sues Partner Over Project Take Over

A lawsuit has been filed against Orbital ATK by U.S. Space over their joint project on the ViviSat orbital servicing system. U.S. Space claims that Orbital ATK improperly closed the joint project in order to pursue the servicing business on its own.

In the suit filed last April 29 with the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Space LLC claims that Orbital ATK did not follow the terms of a management agreement about operations of ViviSat to take control of the company and dissolve it in April, a move that U.S. Space called in court filings "a double-cross of cosmic proportions," Space News reported.

The lawsuit was first reported by the legal publication, Law360. U.S. Space and ATK Space System created ViviSat in 2010 to develop and commercialize a satellite servicing system which was later known as the Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV). Under the original agreement, both companies agreed that ATK was primarily responsible for technical development of the MEV, while U.S. Space will handle the financing and business development.

In 2012, ATK requested that the ViviSat's goals be directly bound to business development milestones. This came after ViviSat's request for an additional $200,000 on top of the $3 million that ATK had already given. Pddnet.com sad that the "amendment trigger" proposed in the revised agreement given by ATK stated that if ViviSat failed in its business goals, three of four seats on its board of directors would be transferred to ATK personnel.

Under the agreement, the amendment trigger would take effect on December 1, 2013, unless ViviSat won a satellite servicing contract and also got a sufficient outside financing to continue the development of the MEV. ATK extended that deadline so many times, according to court filing, until the 30^th of September 2015. U.S. Space claimed that this was set in motion in order to gain control of the project away from them. The company claimed that it met both ATK's business development requirements and therefore was exempt from the amendment trigger, but Orbital ATK still moved to take control of ViviSat on March 4. The three new board members sent to ViviSat by ATK voted to dissolve the company on April 5, claiming that ViviSat did not reach its goals.

Orbital has moved ahead with a new satellite servicing agency, which already has its first contract for an MEV mission in 2018.