HOUSTON, 4 May 2006. SpaceHab Inc., a provider of commercial space services, has received a contract to provide mission integration services for a new stowage platform. The stowage platform, to be flown on the STS-118 space shuttle flight, will be permanently mounted to the International Space Station.
The STS-118 mission originally called for SpaceHab's Logistics Single Module and a standard Integrated Cargo Carrier. In February 2005, NASA decided to convert the cargo carrier to a deployable platform to be transferred to the International Space Station for storage of on-orbit spares.
SpaceHab is providing a cargo carrying solution that meets NASA's space station needs for transporting and storing spare parts, according to Michael E. Kearney, SpaceHab president and chief executive officer.
Known as the External Stowage Platform 3 (ESP3), this modified version of SpaceHab's existing Integrated Cargo Carrier will be launched aboard NASA's twenty-second space station flight, currently scheduled for June 2007. This will be the ninth flight of this commercial unpressurized pallet resource.
The integration and operations work will be performed through subcontract to Lockheed Martin Corporation, NASA's Cargo Mission Contract prime contractor. Although negotiations for this change have not been finalized, the contract value is expected to be on the order of $13 million.
