The Consolidated Space Operations contractor will manage all of NASA's data collection, telemetry and communication operations supporting its Earth-orbiting satellites, planetary exploration, and human space flight activities. The contract shifts management responsibility from five NASA centers to a single entity, which is an unprecedented step for an operation of this magnitude. This effort is being closely observed by other government agencies that also are reviewing consolidating their operations.

"Since becoming NASA Administrator I have committed myself to reviewing the way NASA does business and challenging the NASA team to look at ways to streamline operations and make them more efficient. This contract is projected to save the American taxpayers approximately $1.4 billion over 10 years," said Daniel S. Goldin.

The basic contract amounts to $1.90 billion for a duration of five years, including a three-month phase-in period. The contract runs from October 1998 to December 2003. The award also contains options totaling $1.54 billion, which includes a five-year extension of the basic effort (January 2004 through December 2008); additional options for work at the Kennedy Space Center, FL; and enhanced mission and data service support to the International Space Station program.

"Lockheed Martin was selected based on the overall best value of the company's proposal that will significantly improve the efficiency of NASA's traditional mission and data services infrastructure," said Joseph Rothenberg, Associate Administrator for Space Flight, Washington, DC.

Under the contract guidelines, NASA will adopt a plan that calls for implementing private sector commercial practices, products, services and technology. NASA expects the contractor to reduce overlap, eliminate duplication, and increase efficiency by streamlining service delivery processes. NASA also expects Lockheed Martin to "commercialize" or "privatize" government systems where the offset will lower the life-cycle cost of space flight missions.

The range of the contract's services will include data acquisition from a spacecraft, data transmission to the end user, data processing and storage, ground and space communications, and mission control center operations.

The Lockheed Martin Space Operations Co. team includes Allied Technical Services Corp. with Computer Sciences Co., Booz-Allen & Hamilton, Inc., GTE Government Systems, GHG Corp., Cimarron, and more than 40 other subcontractors.

The work will be performed at five NASA locations including the Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX; Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD; Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL; Kennedy Space Center, FL; and the contractor-operated Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA.

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