A Boeing Delta 2 rocket sits atop its Cape Canaveral launch pad ready for liftoff. Photo: Boeing

Commitment to innovative management, quality and customer service earned the Boeing Delta 2 launch team NASA's George M. Low award. This award is NASA's highest honor for quality and technical performance.

Jay Witzling, Boeing vice president of Delta 2, Delta 3 and Titan Fairing programs, accepted the award from NASA Administrator Daniel S. Goldin during a ceremony at the 15th annual NASA Continual Improvement and Reinvention Conference on Quality Management in Alexandria, Va., on April 28.

"I am excited and happy to receive this honor on behalf of the Delta 2 team," said Witzling. "The Low award testifies to the team's dedication to excellence and continual improvement."

Nominated by the Kennedy Space Center NASA customer, the Delta 2 launch team received the award in the category of large-business product, one of the four award categories. The other categories included small-business product, small-business service and large-business service.

Award winners were evaluated in seven areas. They include customer satisfaction and contract technical performance, schedule performance, cost performance, management initiatives responsive to NASA's strategic goals, leadership and continuous improvement, innovative management and/or technology breakthroughs, and items of special interest to NASA.

This is the first time the Delta 2 program has received the Low award. The launch team was a semi-finalist for the award in 1998 and 1999.

The Delta 2 team has launched one spacecraft for NASA this year, the Imager Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE) spacecraft on March 25.