NASA SELECTS ITT FOR SPACE COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK SERVICES

NASA has selected ITT Corporation, Advanced Engineering and Sciences of Herndon, Va., to perform telemetry, tracking and command services for near-Earth missions under the Space
Communications Network Services contract.

The contract, with an estimated maximum value of $1.26 billion, will support NASA's Space and Near Earth Networks, which provide most of the communications for a wide range of NASA's science-based Earth-orbiting spacecraft, including the International Space Station, the space shuttle, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Earth Observing System satellites.

This cost-plus-award-fee core and indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract has a basic period of performance of five years and three months, including the phase-in period. The contract also includes two one-year options.

The core portion of the contract provides for the operation and maintenance of NASA's Space Network, comprised of the Tracking and Data Relay Satellites and associated ground systems located primarily at White Sands, N.M., and Guam. The contract also provides support to ancillary Space Network sites located in American Samoa, Ascension Island and Australia.

The indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity portion of the contract provides for operation and maintenance of NASA's Near Earth Network, including operations at Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island, Va.; the White Sands Complex in Las Cruces, N.M.; the Merritt Island Launch Annex in Florida; and McMurdo Station in Antarctica. It also includes commercial tracking and data-acquisition operations worldwide, and the Electronics Systems Test Laboratory at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. This portion of the contract also includes support for the Satellite Laser Ranging network and the global Very Long Baseline Interferometry Network. Support in the areas of systems and sustaining engineering, logistics, facilities management and hardware and software development for the Space Network and the Near Earth Network also will be provided.

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