SPACEHAB Subsidiary Awarded New $1.0 Million Nasa Contract
Houston, Texas (December 22, 2005) - SPACEHAB, Incorporated (NASDAQ/NMS: SPAB), a leading space access provider, announced today that its Astrotech Space Operations subsidiary has been awarded a new contract by NASA/Kennedy Space Center to provide payload processing services from the Company's high-tech facilities in Titusville, Florida.
The contract, which is valued at approximately $1.0 million, is for the processing of NASA's THEMIS spacecraft. This new mission is part of the indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity (ID/IQ) contract that NASA awarded to Astrotech in September 2005 and has a total value of up to $4.9 million.
"We are pleased to be able to support yet another NASA research mission set to answer more questions about the development of our planet and the surrounding universe," stated Jim Royston, Deputy General Manager of Astrotech Space Operations. "With hundreds of successfully processed commercial spacecraft passing through our doors, it is exciting to have continued growth in our government sector initiatives."
The mission, to be launched in 2007 following its preparation activities at Astrotech's facilities, is the Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) program. THEMIS is a five-satellite mission with the job of determining the causes of auroras, a celestial phenomenon that has amazed people for centuries while often looking into the northern skies. The small satellites will be put in carefully coordinated orbits, and every four days they will line up along the Earth's magnetic tail, allowing them to track disturbances. Currently, little is known about the explosive events that create these particles throughout the universe.
Under the previously established NASA ID/IQ contract, Astrotech is also gearing up to support the STEREO observatory and the Dawn mission, both scheduled for launch in 2006. Astrotech provides all support necessary for the customer to successfully process their spaceflight hardware for launch, including advance planning; use of unique facilities; and spacecraft checkout, encapsulation, fueling, transport, and remote control through launch. In its twenty-year history, Astrotech has supported the processing of more than 230 spacecraft without a single impact to a customer's mission launch schedule.
