NASA gave DRI Commercial Corp. of Irvine, Calif., a contract to repair critical infrastructure facilities at Johnson Space Center in Houston damaged during Hurricane Ike in September.

Funds will be used to perform roof repairs and roof ledge replacements at Johnson.

The competitively awarded, firm-fixed-price contract begins today.

Total value of the base contract and options is $7.9 million. The base contract lasts approximately 9 months and has seven options. Each of the options, which may be conducted concurrently, also has a performance period of approximately 9 months after notice to begin work.

This is NASA’s first procurement using funds from the Recovery Act.

Among the key purposes of the Recovery Act are preserving and creating jobs, spurring technological advances in science and health, and promoting economic recovery.

NASA will receive a total of approximately $1 billion in Recovery Act stimulus funding, of which $50 million is prioritized for restoring NASA-owned facilities damaged from hurricanes and other natural disasters that occurred during calendar year 2008.

Use of Recovery Act funds for institutional investments will ensure NASA’s key infrastructure capabilities are available to conduct the agency’s mission. New jobs will be created to conduct this work funded by the Recovery Act.

Facilities being repaired at Johnson are crucial to NASA’s human spaceflight missions. These missions include flying the space shuttle until its retirement, completing the assembly of the International Space Station for its use as a national laboratory, implementing Constellation Program’s next-generation space systems and supporting the development of future crew and cargo transportation systems.