Lockheed Martin Space Operations (LMSO) is a member of the winning team recently selected by NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) to provide astronaut-related medical support and operations, flight hardware development and research services for NASA's Space Shuttle and International Space Station programs. The potential value of this contract to Lockheed Martin is about $300 million over the expected ten-year life of the contract.

As the principal subcontractor on this program to Wyle Laboratories, Inc., LMSO will support JSC's Office of Bioastronautics in the Space and Life Sciences organization, which is responsible for the health and productivity of crews living and working in space. The Office of Bioastronautics also ensures the overall excellence of science on human space missions and leverages knowledge gained in space to enhance life on Earth.

"Lockheed Martin has been supporting America's human spaceflight program for more than 40 years and has provided Life Sciences support at Johnson Space Center for more than two decades," said Jay Honeycutt, president, Lockheed Martin Space Operations. "We are delighted that we will continue to be playing a key role in support of JSC's Office of Bioastronautics as a member of the Wyle team."

Under the contract, the company will provide mission management, development, integration and operations support for life sciences experiments and payloads. Its scientists will also develop space food technology and support NASA's award-winning Life Sciences Data Archive. Other activities will include human factors research and support and development of flight hardware and ground systems.

Among its accomplishments in support of NASA's bioastronautics program, Lockheed Martin developed the Human Research Facility, the first facility- class payload on the International Space Station. The company also managed the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission payload, which flew onboard Space Shuttle Endeavour and gathered topographic data over approximately 80% of the land surfaces of the Earth, creating the first-ever near-global data set of land elevations.

Lockheed Martin Space Operations, a business unit of Lockheed Martin Technology Services headquartered in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, is a high- technology company with about 3,000 engineers, scientists and support personnel. Services include data collection, processing and exploitation, telemetry, and communication operations support for NASA; software and hardware engineering for the Space Shuttle and International Space Station; mission operations and planning systems design, development, and integration; and human life sciences research.

SOURCE: Lockheed Martin