TRW Wins $399-Million NASA Satellite Contract
NASA on Friday awarded TRW a $399-million contract to build two Earth-observing satellites, along with options for two more worth an additional $270 million, in an important program that will further underpin TRW’s robust space business and create 250 jobs in Redondo Beach.
TRW won the program only after protracted talks with NASA, following the space agency’s rejection of earlier bids submitted by TRW, Lockheed Martin and Hughes Aircraft that were judged too costly, NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin said.
“We’ve made NASA a better buyer, and we are getting the most for taxpayers,” Goldin said.
NASA’s rejection of the original bids reflects the intense budgetary pressures on the space agency as Congress considers deep cuts to its space science and aeronautics programs.
The satellites are part of NASA’s Mission to Planet Earth, a highly controversial effort to launch a network of satellites that would provide a comprehensive assessment of the Earth’s environment.
TRW’s satellites would be the centerpiece of the system, providing a variety of measurements of air, water, land and life. The first of the 7,000-pound spacecraft would be launched in late 2000 and the second in 2002.
But the program must get out of Congress before it can get into orbit. Rep. Robert Walker (R-Penn.), chairman of the House Science Committee, attempted to kill the TRW part of the program, and as recently as this week asserted that continuing it would imperil other NASA efforts.
After Walker targeted the funding for elimination, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Rolling Hills) successfully offered an amendment that preserved the funding subject to a favorable assessment of the program by the National Academy of Sciences. The academy’s subsequent report said the TRW program, known as the Earth Observing System, is scientifically valid and worth the investment.
“What many people don’t realize is how shortsighted these proposals are to cut science and research funding,” Harman said. “It is the risky long-term research and development that is going to help prepare us for the competitive economy in the future.”
A TRW spokesman said the program will create 125 jobs by next year and 250 by 1997.
TRW is already adding about 800 jobs in Redondo Beach this year, about 400 of which have been filled.
