NASA, PSINET SIGN SPACE ACT AGREEMENT FOR INTERNET CONNECTIVITY



October 27, 1998



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

<h4>Release: J98-51</h4> <h3>NASA, PSINet Sign Space Act Agreement for 
Internet Connectivity</h3> 

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 &ndash; http://shuttle.nasa.gov/ NASA Station Web 
&ndash; http://station.nasa.gov/ NASA Shuttle-Mir Web &ndash; 
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&rsquo;s secure Internet 
commerce site. The images will remain available for free downloading 
in digital format.

	
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