NASA has awarded a $3.44 billion contract to Lockheed Martin Space Operations Co., Houston, TX, to manage the Agency's space operations activities.
The Consolidated Space Operations contractor will manage
all of NASA's data collection, telemetry and communication
operations supporting its Earth-orbiting satellites,
planetary exploration, and human space flight activities. The
contract shifts management responsibility from five NASA
centers to a single entity, which is an unprecedented step
for an operation of this magnitude. This effort is being
closely observed by other government agencies that also are
reviewing consolidating their operations.
"Since becoming NASA Administrator I have committed
myself to reviewing the way NASA does business and
challenging the NASA team to look at ways to streamline
operations and make them more efficient. This contract is
projected to save the American taxpayers approximately $1.4
billion over 10 years," said Daniel S. Goldin.
The basic contract amounts to $1.90 billion for a
duration of five years, including a three-month phase-in
period. The contract runs from October 1998 to December
2003. The award also contains options totaling $1.54
billion, which includes a five-year extension of the basic
effort (January 2004 through December 2008); additional
options for work at the Kennedy Space Center, FL; and
enhanced mission and data service support to the
International Space Station program.
"Lockheed Martin was selected based on the overall best
value of the company's proposal that will significantly
improve the efficiency of NASA's traditional mission and data
services infrastructure," said Joseph Rothenberg, Associate
Administrator for Space Flight, Washington, DC.
Under the contract guidelines, NASA will adopt a plan
that calls for implementing private sector commercial
practices, products, services and technology. NASA expects
the contractor to reduce overlap, eliminate duplication, and
increase efficiency by streamlining service delivery
processes. NASA also expects Lockheed Martin to
"commercialize" or "privatize" government systems where the
offset will lower the life-cycle cost of space flight
missions.
The range of the contract's services will include data
acquisition from a spacecraft, data transmission to the end
user, data processing and storage, ground and space
communications, and mission control center operations.
The Lockheed Martin Space Operations Co. team includes
Allied Technical Services Corp. with Computer Sciences Co.,
Booz-Allen & Hamilton, Inc., GTE Government Systems, GHG
Corp., Cimarron, and more than 40 other subcontractors.
The work will be performed at five NASA locations
including the Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX; Goddard
Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD; Marshall Space Flight
Center, Huntsville, AL; Kennedy Space Center, FL; and the
contractor-operated Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA.
