Talk:Orbital ATK

Requested move 10 August 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Consensus to move, therefore, move. Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 16:25, 20 August 2018 (UTC)

---

Orbital ATK → Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems – The company has been acquired and renamed to Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems XYZt (talk) 22:33, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support - per nom, but a lot of work would need to be done in the article. - BilCat (talk) 14:32, 12 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose (switched to Support, see below) – Company history as Orbital ATK should be preserved here. A new article should be started for NG Innovation. That's the pattern we follow for mergers and acquisitions of major companies with a significant history. — JFG ^talk 07:24, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
  • The company (and article) was barely 3 years old when it was acquired, so there's really not much significant history to preserve in this case. Had it existed for w much longer time, then I'd probably agree with you. - BilCat (talk) 07:40, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Indeed Orbital ATK is a recent merger, but most current products were designed by predecessor companies Orbital Sciences Corporation, founded in 1982, and Alliant Techsystems, spun off from Honeywell in 1990. That's a long enough history. — JFG ^talk 19:59, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Both merged companies articles still exist, and will continue to exist, so that's an extremely weak argument. I still don't see the need to keep this one, when a new article will essentially be a duplicate of this one, at least initially. - BilCat (talk) 20:08, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose – I agree that the company history should be preserved, and that a new article should be written for Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems. --Jax 0677 (talk) 13:01, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support – As far as I'm aware, Orbital ATK was renamed "Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems". Their official website specifically mentions that it was "formerly Orbital ATK" and unlike what you'd expect from a true absorption, describes Innovation Systems, and not Northrop directly, as the one that "designs, builds and delivers space, defense and aviation-related systems." Here's a statement released by Northrop stating that "Orbital ATK will operate as a new business sector of Northrop Grumman." So clearly the entity still exists, it's just under a different name and owner now. Splitting off a new article for the company's history since its acquisition would be silly, in my opinion, as a) it implies that there are two different entities, one old and one new, which is not true and b) the Orbital ATK article itself as of writing is nowhere near long enough to justify a split into two articles. Articles such as The Walt Disney Company have lengthy and highly detailed history sections that don't have split off sections, and those that do, such as History of Apple Inc. are done so because they've become too lengthy for the main Apple Inc. article. This article is currently nowhere near that length necessary to justify a split-and-summarise action. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 11:16, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

That's good information. If the company was just renamed, then article text should say so, and we can rename the article. In that case we must stop saying that Orbital ATK "was" a company that "employed" xx,000 workers. Let's fix the contents first, then we can apply the title renaming. — JFG ^talk 14:32, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose. Support. The company was acquired, and from looking at Grumman's website looks to be integrated into Northrup Grumman's operations. An example to compare with would be Sun_acquisition_by_Oracle, where Sun was purchased by Oracle. The structure remained intact and product maps continued for a few years, but by and large the organization was subsumed into Oracle and the Sun brand withered away. That looks like what's going on with Orbital ATK, so a historical view is probably reasonable. Tarl N. (discuss) 17:20, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

@Tarl N.: This would be treading into WP:CRYSTAL territory, however, when you try to predict what might happen based on what happened to some other unrelated company. We should stick to what the current, verifiable facts are, which is that Orbital ATK still exists, just under a different name and new ownership. If Innovation Systems ceases to exist in a few years from now as you predict, then we’ll cross that bridge. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 01:55, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

And more importantly, I didn't realize earlier that the Orbital Sciences article still exists. Given that, I've changed my vote to support. I was concerned about the history of organization dating back to the 80's was going to vanish into a merger. Given the original corporation's article still exists, I'm not concerned. Tarl N. (discuss) 02:53, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

@Tarl N.: Indeed it does exist. Articles for both the Orbital Sciences Corporation and Alliant Techsystems exist to document the history of both companies before Orbital ATK, much like articles for Square and Enix exist for their respective histories before Square Enix, in addition to other scenarios of notable companies prior to corporate mergers on Wikipedia. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 06:40, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support per BilCat's rebuttal to JFG. --Ahecht (TALK
  PAGE) 03:05, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
• Support – Given the rewrite of the lead paragraph by PhilipTerryGraham, I am switching my opinion. — JFG ^talk 10:26, 19 August 2018 (UTC)

---

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Innovation systems doesn’t exist any longer

On the 1st of januari the Innovation systems division ceased to exist after being reorganized.

[1] Sidebart (talk) 22:53, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Recommend moving back to Orbital ATK

The Article as currently written is factually incorrect:

• the "Key People" listed in the box were relevant only to Orbital ATK and not to the Northrop Grumman NGIS sector
• Article states that NGIS was the "aviation division of parent company Northrop Grumman" . This is absolutely false. NG had aviation in other sectors (see B2 and B21 bombers). NGIS did more than aviation (rockets, satellites, munitions)
• The three groups listed in the article were named as "groups" only under Orbital ATK and got renamed to divisions under Northrop Grumman

The article as written is really about Orbital ATK and was attempted to be retrofitted into an NGIS article. None of the other divisions (or sectors) of Northrop Grumman have standalone articles. Conversely other companies that were absorbed into Northrop Grumman retained their original article (see Grumman).

The article really is about Orbital ATK, the historical company, and not about NGIS, the now defunct sector of Northrop Grumman. Recommend renaming back to Orbital ATK. Spaceman13 (talk) 21:17, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you consider "divisions (or sectors) of Northrop Grumman" to be, as Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems and Northrop Grumman Ship Systems also exist. That the conversion of the article to be about NGIS was never completed isn't really a reason to move it back, just a reminder to complete it. Work will have to be done either way. The original consensus that Orbital ATK had only existed for 3 years still has merit, even given that NGIS has only lasted less than 2 years itself. Given the total history is less than 5 years, I don't see a problem leaving the article here and updating and expanding it properly to cover the NGIS years. - BilCat (talk) 21:38, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I have advised this user after they posted on my talk page how to open a requested moves discussion if they desire. Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 21:45, 30 April 2020 (UTC)