Space Launch System
Space Launch System. Credit: NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center

WASHINGTON — Dynetics received a multimillion-dollar contract from Boeing Sept. 23 to develop components of NASA’s Space Launch System, part of ongoing efforts by the company to capture a greater share of SLS work.

Huntsville, Alabama-based Dynetics will provide Boeing with three structural test simulators for the core stage of the SLS. Dynetics will also design and manufacture the core stage’s Thrust Vector Control Exhaust Gas Heat Exchanger, a unit that keeps at the proper temperature hydraulic fluid used by actuators that control the thrust produced by the stage’s four main engines.

Dynetics spokeswoman Janet Felts said Sept. 24 that the contract covers the development of the heat exchangers and flight units for the first two SLS launches. The overall contract value is several million dollars.

“We are pleased to work with Boeing,” Dynetics President David King said in a statement. “We look forward to providing additional support to the SLS program.”

The award is the latest effort by Dynetics to win a bigger share of work on the overall SLS program. In 2012, the company received a contract from NASA to perform risk reduction work on a proposed advanced booster for the SLS. Felts said Dynetics is also working with Aerojet Rocketdyne on SLS engine risk reduction activities, and is pursuing opportunities with the SLS upper stage.

Jeff Foust writes about space policy, commercial space, and related topics for SpaceNews. He earned a Ph.D. in planetary sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree with honors in geophysics and planetary science...