NASA awards Millennium Mission contract
NASA Tuesday announced a $27 million Millennium Mission contract to the Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va.
The contract was awarded by NASA's Pasadena, Calif-based, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which manages the New Millennium project.
Orbital, based in Dulles, Va., will design, develop and manufacture the next satellite in the series of demonstration spacecraft. In addition, Orbital said it would provide the mission's launch vehicle and related services under a separate NASA contract.
Space agency officials said the Space Technology 8 satellite would validate four advanced technologies in space for possible use in future NASA science missions. The payload experiments are a large flexible solar array, a 131-foot deployable boom, high radiation environment electronics, and a spacecraft thermal control device.
The mission is scheduled for launch in 2009.
Copyright 2005 by United Press International