Dec 23 1987
From The Space Library
NASA awarded contracts to the four aerospace firms it had selected on December 1, 1987, to design, develop, test, evaluate, and deliver the components and systems comprising the proposed crew-tended Space Station, planned for orbit in the mid-1990s. The contracts issued covered Phase I, the already approved elements of the Space Station program. Phase II would cover any potentially needed enhancements of the Space Station's capabilities. The four companies selected, each to perform a unique but inter-dependent portion of the total program, were Boeing Aerospace Company, Huntsville, Alabama; McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company, with locations in Huntington Beach, California and Houston, Texas; General Electric Company, Astro-Space Division, with locations in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania and East Windsor, New Jersey; and Rocketdyne Division, Rockwell International, Canoga Park, California. (NASA Release 87-177; NASA Release 87-187; C Trib, Dec 2/87; LA Times, Dec 2/87; NY Times, Dec 2/87; WSJ, Dec 2/87; W Post, Dec 2/87)
NASA announced the retirement of Philip E. Culbertson, Associate Administrator for Policy and Planning. Culbertson planned to leave NASA in mid-January to become President of the Lew Evans Foundation. (NASA Release 87-188)
NASA announced that White Sands Space Harbor, New Mexico, was designated an alternate end-of-mission landing site for Space Shuttle missions STS-26 through STS-28. The new site was to be used for a Shuttle landing when conditions at Edwards At Force Base in California precluded landing. (NASA Release 87- 189)
Carver Kennedy, Vice President for Space Services at Morton Thiokol, Inc., said that engineers successfully test-fired the company's redesigned Space Shuttle booster rocket, planned for use when NASA resumed Shuttle flights in June 1988. (WSJ, Dec 24/87; W Post, Dec 24/87; W Times, Dec 24/87)
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