Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company's Missiles and Space Operations, Sunnyvale, Calif., has received a contract modification valued at $123 million from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., for work to be performed in support of Servicing Mission 4, the final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. Servicing Mission 4 is scheduled for February 2004.

Under terms of the contract, Lockheed will be responsible for implementing the Servicing Mission 4 and for post- servicing-mission observatory-verification efforts to ensure the newly installed equipment is working properly and the telescope is ready to resume its scientific observations.

Lockheed and its subcontractors will be responsible for designing, building, testing and integrating the new systems into Hubble, including new batteries, new gyroscopes and a new Aft Shroud Cooling System. The new cooling system will carry heat away from scientific instruments and allow the instruments to operate better at lower temperatures. It also will allow multiple instruments to operate simultaneously, helping the science team maintain the program's high productivity.

Hubble's remaining original Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) also will be changed out during the flight. Hubble has three of these sensors, which are systematically refurbished and upgraded in "round-robin" fashion, one per servicing mission. By the conclusion of SM4 all three FGSs will have been brought up to optimum condition.

Lockheed also will be responsible for the integration of two new science Instruments to be installed on the SM 4 flight: the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and the Wide Field Camera Three.

The Hubble Space Telescope Program is managed by Goddard for the Office of Space Science at NASA Headquarters, Washington.