Spacehab Unit Lands NASA Satellite Support Contract

Spacehab‘s [Nasdaq: SPAB] Astrotech Space Operations subsidiary has been awarded a contract by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to provide payload processing services for Aura, the third mission of the Earth Observing System program to study the Earth’s environment and climate changes. The satellite is scheduled to launch January 2004 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Under the $700,000 contract, Astrotech will provide processing support from the satellite’s arrival at Vandenberg through transfer to the Delta II launch complex. Though the processing and launch of the satellite are conducted from Vandenberg, the AURA satellite, instruments, and science investigations are managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Its mission, expected to last more than five years, is designed to conduct research on the composition, chemistry, and dynamics of the Earth’s upper and lower atmosphere employing multiple instruments on a single satellite. The first and second EOS missions, Terra and Aqua, are designed to study the land, oceans and the Earth’s radiation budget.