Mar 14 1985
From The Space Library
NASA announced it had selected six industry teams for negotiations leading to 21-month fixed-price contracts for definition and preliminary design (Phase B) of elements for a permanently manned space station. Four NASA centers previously did this work.
The responsible centers and the industry teams selected for negotiations were: Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) with Boeing Aerospace Co., Seattle, and Martin Marietta Aerospace, Denver; Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) with RCA Astro Electronics, Princeton, New Jersey, and General Electric Co., Space Systems Division, Philadelphia; and Lewis Research Center (LeRC) with Rockwell Internatl., Rocketdyne Division, Canoga Park, California, and TRW Federal Systems Division, Redondo Beach, Calif. In addition, NASA would negotiate with Lockheed Missiles & Space Co., Sunnyvale, California; McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Co., Huntington Beach, California; and Rockwell Internatl., Space Station Systems Division, Downey California, the proposers for work to be performed under the management of Johnson Space Center (JSC). Negotiators would present a report to the NASA Administrator who would then award one or more contracts.
Although negotiations would determine values of the contracts, the September 14, 1984, Request for Proposal (RFP) indicated that the approximate value of contracts could be $24 million at MSFC, $27 million at JSC, $10 million at GSFC, and $6 million at LeRC.
In addition to Phase B work, NASA required the contractors to study how those elements of the space station would change depending on whether the station was man-tended rather than permanently manned and to pay particular attention to the recommendations of the NASA advanced technology advisory committee that was identifying automation and robotic technologies that could be used in the space station.
Following completion of the contracts, NASA planned to move into final design and development (Phase C/D) of the space station.
A major objective of the space station program was to involve international partners as builders, users, and operators of the space station. The European Space Agency (ESA), Canada, and Japan had indicated interest in participating. They would provide their own funding and award definition and preliminary design contracts in coordination with NASA activities. NASA, through JSC management, would retain responsibility for overall program definition and for systems engineering and integration throughout the program. (NASA Release 85-38)
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Donald Engen, citing improvements in scheduling practices and air traffic control, told airlines today that on April 1 he would remove minute-by-minute restrictions on the number of flights at airports in Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, and the New York City area, the Washington Post reported. He said delays would continue to occur but should be reduced and more manageable.
Before the restrictions, the air traffic system had experienced an unprecedented number of delays, averaging 1,400 daily 15-minute or longer delays nationwide the previous August. Between November 1 and January 31, 1984, average daily delays dropped to 863, a reduction of 46%. Not all delays were attributable to airport congestion or air traffic control problems; the FAA generally blamed about 60% of them on weather.
Also likely to contribute to a decrease in delays was the increasing ability of the FAA to monitor traffic nationwide through its computer system and to redirect planes to less-busy routes. Engen noted that the airlines had indicated they would continue to operate the schedules adopted under the restrictions and would not revert to the bunching of large numbers of operations within short time periods. (W Post, Mar 15/85, A16)
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