NASA has awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin Space Operations Co., in Houston, to support space flight programs by providing mission operations and ground planning systems. Major customers include the Space Shuttle and International Space Station Programs.

The Mission Support Operations Contract (MSOC) includes support for NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) Space Operations Mission and Data Services. The Mission Control Center, Integrated Planning System and the Houston Support Room/Backup Command and Control Center in Russia carry out these functions.

MSOC will provide ground system services for JSC's Emergency Operations Center and the Electronic System Test Laboratory, which includes space communications integration.

The cost-plus-award-fee contract, with an estimated maximum value of $243.5 million, begins Oct. 1, 2003 with a three-month transition period. It also includes an initial nine-month basic contract period valued at $64.9 million. The MSOC establishes two mutually exclusive option scenarios. NASA will decide by September 2004 whether to exercise one of the option scenarios, and if so, which one.

The first scenario consists of two three-month options referred to as Option One, worth $20.1 million and Option Two, worth $19.6 million. The second scenario includes a single, two-year option referred to as Option Three that's valued at $178.5 million.

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