NASA has awarded a contract with a potential value of $165.8 million for support of International Space Station (ISS) Cargo Mission services to Lockheed Martin Space Operations of Houston.

The ISS Cargo Mission contract is among the contracts being awarded as part of a restructuring of ISS contracts seeking to consolidate work, increase efficiency, increase accountability, and transition the program's contract strategy from development and construction of hardware to orbital operations.

Work under the contract will provide services related to the planning, preparation and conduct of cargo missions to the International Space Station. The contract activities will include: cargo mission planning, cargo coordination, stowage integration, analytical integration, physical processing, decals, placards, graphics, on-orbit operations, sustaining engineering, management, and the integration of commercial cargo carriers and services.

Options under the contract are available to provide stowage integration services to the Space Shuttle Program, NASA prepacked-cargo processing for the Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle and NASA prepacked-cargo processing for the European Automated Transfer Vehicle, which are planned to provide future logistics support to the ISS.

The basic period of the cost-plus-award-fee contract is four years and nine months, with an estimated value of $108.5 million. Two one-year extension options to the basic period are available and would bring the total contract value to $165.8 million.

Work on the contract will be performed at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida and its immediate surrounding areas, and other locations inside and outside the United States. Major subcontractors include United Space Alliance of Houston, Teledyne Brown Engineering of Huntsville, Ala., and Bastion Technologies of Houston.

More information on the ISS contract strategy, including a complete background and history, is available on the Internet at: http://jsc-web-pub.jsc.nasa.gov/bd01/ISS/Default.asp