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An expansion project for Orbital Sciences Corp. in Chandler will give the company more room to develop and manufacture a new, more powerful rocket to supply the international space station and launch other payloads for commercial and government customers.

The medium-class rocket, called the Taurus II, is three times bigger than the biggest launch vehicle offered by Orbital today and will be the key to the company's growth, said David W. Thompson, chairman and chief executive of the Dulles, Va.-based company.

"It will allow us to address a bigger part of the market," he said last week. "It will double the potential market size that we can serve in the next two to three years."

Orbital already has about 100 engineers working on the Taurus II design in Chandler, and that number is expected to double in the next year, he said.

The first prototype of the two-stage rocket will be launched in 2010 from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.

At a time when most businesses are cutting back and laying off workers, Orbital continues to expand because of a heavy backlog of contracts for government and commercial space launches. Also, the company is deeply involved in the national Missile Defense System, building both target rockets for testing the system and interceptor missiles.

But Thompson said the Taurus II program will probably be the major driver of the company's growth in Chandler.

Orbital employs about 1,500 people now at its Chandler plant and at two satellite locations. The expansion will eventually create room for another 1,000.