Orion

Orion Network Systems Inc., one of Maryland's fastest growing technology companies, said yesterday that its third-quarter losses decreased to $5.79 million, or 53 cents a share, compared with a loss of $6.99 million, or 78 cents a share, during the year-ago period.The improvement for the Bethesda-based company was a result of a 97 percent increase in revenues to $12.2 million, compared with $6.2 million during the third quarter last year. While both parts of the business grew fast, the largest increase was in providing satellite services for private international businesses.

Alliant Techsystems Inc. has been named to a team with a $70 million contract to build an emergency propulsion system for the next-generation spacecraft Orion that would allow the crew to separate from the rest of the craft in the event of an emergency. The contract will create 50 jobs in Maryland, most of them at the company's plant in Elkton but also some in Baltimore and Cumberland. ATK employees will build the "attitude control motor" for the launch abort system that will allow the crew capsule to separate and land safely under its own power.

LOS ANGELES -- A series of newly completed films starring some of Hollywood's most prestigious artists has been placed in virtual cold storage because Orion Pictures, which made them, is facing severe financial difficulties.Film executives close to Orion, a small studio with a record of critically acclaimed movies, said that the decision to keep the movies on the shelf was especially painful because several of them, and their stars, are believed to have Academy Award potential. If the movies are not released in the next two months, they will be ineligible for Oscar nominations.

Attention, space cadets! If skies stay clear, skywatchers will have two good opportunities this week to watch as the International Space Station soars over Baltimore. The first comes at 7:09 tonight as the ISS and crew appear above the southwestern horizon, headed northeast up the coast. Look for a steady, star-like object rising swiftly toward the constellation Orion. There, it will disappear at 7:12 p.m. A better flyover comes Tuesday night, but clouds or flakes might interfere. Check MarylandWeather.

There could be a second Orion in the heavens starting tomorrow night.If all goes well with the launch scheduled for tomorrow morning at Cape Canaveral, the first satellite to be operated by Orion Network Systems of Rockville will slip into an equatorial niche just above the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.Like its constellation namesake, the newcomer to space will be a hunter. In this case, however, its quarry will be market share that now belongs almost entirely to Comsat Corp., the Bethesda-based giant of the international satellite communications industry.

When Orion's "Silence of the Lambs" won the five top Oscars last month, it added a bittersweet irony to the studio's current state of bankruptcy. The maker of four of the last eight best pictures -- "Amadeus," "Platoon" and "Dances With Wolves" are the other three -- Orion spent the '80s taking creative risks most studios avoided.Along with the winners came box-office losers -- "State of Grace," "The Hot Spot," "The Last of the Finest," "She-Devil." By 1990 the studio was resorting to desperate measures like selling off valuable film and video rights at low prices to help shore up its crumbling finances.

Orion Power Holdings Inc., a Baltimore company that buys and operates power plants nationwide, is near agreement to be acquired by Houston-based electricity company Reliant Resources Inc., sources close to the transaction said yesterday. The deal could be announced as early as this morning, they said. Reliant would pay $2.9 billion in cash and assume $1.8 billion of debt in the transaction. The acquisition values Orion at about $26.80 a share, which represents a 40 percent premium over Orion's $19.20-a-share close on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday.

NEW YORK -- Loral Space & Communications Ltd. yesterday agreed to buy Orion Network Systems Inc. for about $490 million in stock, expanding its satellite services into new markets.Rockville-based Orion owns and operates the Orion 1 satellite, which covers European, trans-Atlantic and U.S. markets, and has two more satellites under construction. The company provides video communications and other services to about 260 multinational businesses and Internet-service providers in 47 countries.

Executives of Baltimore-based Orion Power Holdings Inc. and Reliant Resources Inc. confirmed yesterday that they will merge in a deal that will create the nation's second-largest independent power producer with more than 20,000 megawatts of electricity capacity in operation or under construction. The deal, reported yesterday by The Sun, also means that Baltimore will likely lose a headquarters of a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. In addition, the future of Orion's downtown personnel is in question.

Orion Power Holdings Inc. announced yesterday that it completed a $200 million purchase of Columbia Electric Corp., an electric power generating company building plants in West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Company officials held a champagne toast yesterday afternoon to celebrate Orion's third acquisition this year and to welcome new employees from Columbia Electric, which is based in Herndon, Va. The deal is expected to prove crucial to helping Orion grow in two ways: through use of the plants now being built and through the expertise of Columbia's development team, which will be helping Orion build its own power plants.

WASHINGTON -- NASA chose Lockheed Martin yesterday to build the spacecraft they hope will return Americans to the moon and take future explorers to Mars. Under a contract that could total $8.15 billion, the aerospace giant will develop a capsule-shaped vehicle similar in appearance to the one that took an earlier generation of astronauts to the moon during Apollo. NASA hopes to use the vehicle, named Orion, to get back to the moon by 2020 and then set sail for Mars. "Space is no longer going to be a destination that we visit briefly," said Scott J. Horowitz, associate administrator of NASA's exploration systems mission directorate.

On July 29, 2006, WILLIAM H. REIBER, SR., beloved husband of the late Isabel F. Reiber; loving father of William H. Reiber, Jr., Stella Brown, Clyde Reiber, Barbara L. Karayinopulos and the late Frank Reiber, George "Butch" Reiber, Frances A. Clifford and John Reiber; dear father-in-law of Pat Reiber, Roger Brown, Debbie Reiber, Patricia Reiber, Christopher Clifford, Steven Karayinopulos and Heather Seaman; cherished grandfather of 20 grandchildren and...

On June 6, 2006, MICHAEL IRA COHEN father of Eric J. Cohen, grandfather of Mikayla Danielle Cohen, brother of Barry R. Cohen and his wife Lexie of Weston, FL. Son of the late Bertha and Charles Cohen. Family at home, 1656 Orion Lane, FL., 33327.

In The Region NeighborCare suitor, Omnicare, provides data to regulators Omnicare Inc., the Kentucky company making a hostile take-over bid for Baltimore-based NeighborCare Inc., said yesterday that it had completed sending information about the proposed deal to federal antitrust regulators. Omnicare said it has agreed with the Federal Trade Commission that it will not attempt to complete the deal for at least 55 days. A thumbs-down from the regulators would scuttle the deal. If the regulators find the combination would not violate antitrust rules, Omnicare still has to persuade NeighborCare's board, which has resisted the $30-a-share bid for a year so far, or 80 percent of its shareholders.

Columbia's 2004-2005 concert season begins next weekend, not with a trickle but with a deluge. The Columbia Orchestra, Howard County's premier ensemble for instrumental music, takes the Rouse Theatre stage at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 23. Works by Beethoven, Berlioz and 20th- century master Paul Hindemith will be on the program that will be led by Jason Love, the ensemble's conductor. Anchoring the concert will be classical music's ultimate drug trip gone bad, Berlioz's phantasmagoric Symphonie Fantastique.

It goes without saying that you can't please everybody, but that doesn't stop Columbia's Candlelight Concert Society from trying. Indeed, the society's 2004-05 concert season - the 32nd chamber music series it has offered the public since its inception - is full of diverse offerings that should leave music lovers of all stripes engaged and edified. To begin with, there are the "meat and potatoes" of the chamber repertoire, masterworks that embody the genius of the Western musical tradition at its most inspired.

Orion Power Holdings, a joint venture of the Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. and investment powerhouse Goldman Sachs & Co., completed its $425 million purchase of 71 hydroelectric generating plants yesterday.All of the plants are in upstate New York and were owned by Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. of Syracuse, N.Y. The plants generate enough megawatt hours of electricity to serve 200,000 homes.Lori Scheiner, a spokeswoman for Orion, said the acquisition is part of the company's strategy of "building a portfolio of nonnuclear electric-generating stations throughout the United States."

Orion Power Holdings Inc. has more than doubled in size and far exceeded earnings expectations in the last year, Chief Executive Officer Jack Fusco said yesterday at the Baltimore energy company's first annual shareholders meeting since going public in November. With about 6,000 megawatts of electricity - enough to supply 6 million homes - already being produced, Orion's new five-year plan calls for additional power plants to be built and the purchase of other facilities in order to reach a goal of 20,000 megawatts by 2005, Fusco told a small group of about 30 company employees and members of the board at the Hyatt Regency Baltimore.

Reliant Resources Inc. of Houston completed its $4.8 billion purchase yesterday of Baltimore's Orion Power Holdings Inc. to create the second-largest independent power producer in the nation. Orion's top five leaders - including founders Chief Executive Officer Jack Fusco, Chief Legal Officer W. Thaddeus Miller and Chief Financial Officer Scott B. Helm - stepped down at 2 p.m., as expected, when the transaction received its final approval - a certificate of merger from the Delaware secretary of state.

Clearing the last hurdle needed to merge, Houston-based Reliant Resources Inc. received approval yesterday from federal energy regulators to buy Orion Power Holdings Inc. of Baltimore for $4.8 billion in cash and debt. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ruled that Reliant's acquisition of 81 power plants owned by Orion in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and New York will not hurt competition or raise electricity prices. The merger will create the second-largest independent power producer in the country.