NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Fla., has extended the
period of performance of the Payload Ground Operations
Contract (PGOC) held for the last 15 years by The Boeing
Company at Kennedy Space Center. The contract expires Dec. 31,
2001.

This cost-plus-award-fee extension through March 2002 (with
one-month options until July 2002) is valued at $59.5 million
and brings the total contract value to almost $1.9 billion.

The extension provides for coverage of payload ground support,
test, integration and de-integration for space shuttle and
expendable launch vehicle payloads. This action ensures
uninterrupted program support through the PGOC and bridges the
gap in performance between Dec. 31, 2001, and the awards of
the follow-on contracts to PGOC — the Checkout, Assembly and
Payload Processing Services (CAPPS) contract and the
Expendable Launch Vehicle Integrated Services (ELVIS)
contract.

The original PGOC contract was initiated in January 1987 with
McDonnell Douglas Space and Defense Systems.