The company that makes shuttle solid rocket boosters will design, develop, test and manufacture astronaut equipment and prototypes under a $70 million NASA contract, officials said today.ATK is one of four organizations that will take part in the Crew Robotic, Avionics and Vehicle Equipment (CRAVE) work, which will be done at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.
"The ATK team assembled for the CRAVE contract looks forward to delivering innovative services and products to JSC in support of NASA’s human spaceflight programs,” former NASA astronaut Mike Bloomfield, ATK’s vice president of JSC Operations, said in a statement.
"Our team’s extensive technical expertise in all CRAVE areas is integrated through disciplined project management and systems engineering, producing robust and affordable engineering solutions."The five-year contract calls for the ATK-led team to certify, deliver and maintain spacewalk equipment, flight crew equipment, crew health and conditioning systems, environmental control and life support equipment and active thermal control system equipment.
ATK's partners in the venture include: Barrios Technology, Houston; Ares Corporation, Houston; Paragon Space Development Corporation, Tucson, Ariz.; Odyssey Space Research L.L.C., Houston; General Dynamics, Advanced Information Systems, Scottsdale, Ariz.; Honeybee Robotics, New York, New York; and University of Colorado, Boulder, Colo.
NOTE ON IMAGES: Click to enlarge the NASA images of spacewalkers Tracy Caldwell-Dyson (top) and Doug Wheelock in the U.S. Quest airlock at the International Space Station. The two station flight engineers recently perfermed critical cooling system repairs during a quartet of spacewalks at the outpost.
3 comments:
The IG needs to investigate this crap. ATK has done a sorry job on Ares first stage and has run the cost of redesigning heritage hardware through the roof....which was not supposed to be redesigned! It is still a joke to this day. NASA is also to blame....they just sit back and write the checks and ATK laughs all the way to the bank! This has been going on since the Challenger disaster.
ATK, Oceaneering, Wiley and UAB were all selected in the CRAVE re-compete contract. ATK will have to compete against these organizations on each Delivery Order released through this contract. Oceaneering and UAB were incumbents from the original CRAVE contract.
Is Ron Dittemore still at ATK? With all the retired astronauts and x NASA management out in private industry, e.g. Boeing, ATK Lockheed, etc., makes one wonder if all this hasn't become a big good-old-boy network when it comes to contracts.
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