October 27, 1998

Catherine Watson
Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX
(281) 483-5111

Release: J98-51

NASA, PSINet Sign Space Act Agreement for Internet Connectivity

NASA and PSINet Inc. signed a Space Act Agreement today under which PSINet will provide Internet connectivity for the NASA Shuttle Web, NASA Station Web and NASA Shuttle-Mir Web beginning with the STS-95 mission.

Under the agreement, PSINet will provide managed web hosting of the three high-volume NASA World Wide Web sites through the end of the current calendar year. The hosting will be done at no cost to the government and the two parties will collaborate to evaluate, verify, and test the capabilities of the hosting system. The web hosting efforts are expected to provide improved access for the general public to information about STS-95, which will include the flight of Sen. John Glenn, and STS-88, the first International Space Station assembly flight to be launched aboard a space shuttle.

The addresses of the NASA web sites will remain:

NASA Shuttle Web – http://shuttle.nasa.gov/ NASA Station Web – http://station.nasa.gov/ NASA Shuttle-Mir Web – http://shuttle-mir.nasa.gov/

PSINet will provide all hardware, software, facilities and services required to support the anticipated demand for information on these high-visibility missions. In addition, PSINet will provide NASA with unrestricted access to data, including technical reports, findings and analyses, generated by PSINet resulting from data results on usage of the sites, Internet bandwidth required to enable access and accessibility statistics collected under the agreement.

PSINet is an experienced provider of IP-based communications services headquartered in suburban Washington, D.C., with more than 500 points-of-presence and operations in United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia.

In a related development, photographic prints of images taken before, during and after the STS-95 and STS-88 missions will be available for on-line ordering through an expansion of a market trial agreement signed by NASA and Eastman Kodak Co. earlier this year. Internet visitors may order the photographs after locating them on the NASA Shuttle Web by clicking on a link to Kodak’s secure Internet commerce site. The images will remain available for free downloading in digital format.

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