Apr 15 2008
From The Space Library
NASA announced that it had awarded a sole-source contract to Hamilton Sundstrand Space Systems International of Windsor Locks, Connecticut, to provide a water-production system aboard the ISS. Under the terms of the contract, Hamilton Sundstrand would provide equipment that would use excess carbon dioxide and hydrogen on the ISS to produce water and methane, using a chemical process called a Sabatier reaction. The ISS’s waste-water system would treat the water produced in this process, so that the astronauts could use it for drinking, washing, preparing food, generating oxygen, and cooling electronic equipment. NASA planned to send the equipment to the ISS aboard mission STS-130, scheduled for launch in 2009. Officials hoped that the water-production system would pave the way for other new technologies that NASA could use in future missions traveling too far from the Earth for routine resupply. The contract represented a change in NASA’s business arrangements. Instead of purchasing the hardware for water production, NASA had contracted only for the production of services. The contractor had agreed to be responsible for all system development and performance. The contract, which would extend through 30 September 2014, could reach a value of as much as US$65 million.
NASA, “NASA Awards Space Station Water Contract to Hamilton Sundstrand,” news release C08-020, 15 April 2008, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/apr/HQ_C08020_ISS_Water_Contract.html (accessed 17 February 2011).
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