Boeing

NASA has awarded Boeing [NYSE:BA] a near perfect performance rating and award fee for the final nine months of the Payload Ground Operations Contract, or PGOC, performed at Kennedy Space Center, Fla.

NASA Systems, a business unit of Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, has held the contract for more than 15 years and prepared more than 2 million pounds of payloads for flight, including scientific experiments, spacecraft and supplies that were flown on space shuttle and expendable launch vehicle missions. The final segment, a cost-plus-award-fee extension through Sept. 30, 2002, was valued at $25.3 million. The total contract value is almost $2 billion, and currently employs almost 900 people in the Kennedy Space Center area.

"Our team should feel really proud. This is an endorsement of our hard work, and shows we're doing an outstanding job for the customer," said John Elbon, Boeing vice president for the PGOC program.

The award fee, based on overall performance with an emphasis on cost and safety, was the highest ever awarded to the payload processing team under the PGOC program.

"In partnership with NASA, we have significantly reduced costs by 30% and still maintained a high level of performance and a focus on safety," Elbon said.

Boeing was recently awarded the successor Checkout, Assembly & Payload Processing Services contract, or CAPPS. The new contract continues responsibility for ground support, testing, integration, and de-integration of space shuttle and expendable launch vehicle payloads, including flight elements of the International Space Station; operation and maintenance of associated facilities and ground systems; and support of the government's top priorities safety, mission success, and payload-developer/customer satisfaction.