The new MEDS cockpit is fully lit during a demonstration aboard Atlantis. Photo: NASA

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. has won a $200,000 contract from United Space Alliance for the NASA Space Shuttle Orbiter Cockpit Avionics Upgrade Program, Phase 1. Ball Aerospace was one of five contractors selected for this phase 1 effort, with Kaiser Electronics, Foster City, Calif., as its subcontractor. Ball Aerospace and Kaiser Electronics will design a plan to upgrade all of the Space Shuttle Orbiter cockpit display computers to current state-of-the-art status.

"Phase 1 is a proof of concept only; no hardware will be built at this point," according to Ken Miller, program manager for Ball Aerospace. "All five winners are basically evaluating the proof of concept jointly with NASA."

During this phase, Ball Aerospace and Kaiser Electronics will be testing commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) equipment and software that represents the eventual shuttle flight system. Testing to determine the best operating system for the computers will be conducted at the Johnson Space Center, Houston.

Phase 2, which will entail evolutionary design and testing, will narrow the vendors to three, with a maximum award of $2 million to each. This phase is scheduled to be awarded in November 2000. The final phase of the upgrade is scheduled for completion in late 2003.

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. provides imaging and communications products for commercial and government customers worldwide and is a subsidiary of Ball Corporation, a Fortune 500 company which had sales of $3.6 billion in 1999.