Boeing has been the lead industry partner for NASA, at least regarding the International Space Station, also abbreviated as ISS, ever since 1993. Now, Boeing has just announced that they will keep supporting the orbiting laboratory through the month of September of 2024 under a large contract extension. This contact extension amounts to a close-to-record 916 million USD.
The Contract
According to Boeing, they will provide various services for the space agency, such as engineering support services, personnel for various activities aboard the ISS, resources and support for the system belonging to the space station. All of this was made public in a statement by Boeing.
The company has also mentioned that the job will be performed at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center located in Houston, Texas. It will also be performed at a base located in Cape Canaveral in Florida and at the Marshall Space Flight Center located in Huntsville, in the state of Alabama. There are also a number of other locations scattered all across the globe. The value of this prized contract amounts to about 225 million dollars each year, according to the same statement released by Boeing.
The Context
John Mulholland, the vice president of Boeing and a program manager for the International Space Station, has explained that the ISS is just marking its 20th anniversary regarding the habitation of human beings. With this anniversary, Boeing is using the opportunity to make it more useful and livable for the orbiting lab that was built there for NASA a couple of decades ago.
The State of the ISS
The operations on the International Space Station have been extended for at least 4 years, lasting, at its earliest, until 2024. According to a structural analysis that happened earlier, the spaceship will still be safe and capable to host missions. This information can also be found in the statement that was made public by Boeing.
