NASA TV to Air Grand Opening of Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden will participate in the grand opening of The Boeing Company’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday, Sept. 4. The event will air live on NASA Television beginning at 10 a.m. EDT.

Boeing, one of two companies under contract with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program to restore America’s ability to launch crews to the International Space Station from the United States, will debut the modernization of the former space shuttle Orbiter Processing Facility-3, which now is home to Boeing’s CST-100 spacecraft. Inside, there are more than 150 pieces of hardware, as well as the structural test article and service module that together will be used to prove the design Boeing is developing to accomplish flight tests and crew missions to the space station.

Additional participants are:

– Robert Cabana, director of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center
– Chris Ferguson, deputy manager of the Commercial Crew Program, Operations, Boeing
– John Elbon, vice president and general Manager of Space Exploration, Boeing
– John Mulholland, vice president of Commercial Programs, Boeing
– U.S. Senator Bill Nelson (D-Florida)
– Florida Governor Rick Scott (R-Florida)

Through a 2011 land-use agreement between Kennedy and Space Florida, a state economic development agency, the former space shuttle hangar has been transformed to support Boeing’s clean-floor factory-like concept for processing the CST-100. Kennedy has transitioned more than 50 facilities for commercial use over the past few years as the space center has evolved to a multi-user spaceport.

For more information about NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/kennedy

For more information about NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew