Denver-based Lockheed Martin Space Systems was awarded a follow-on contract for Hubble Space Telescope support.
The sole-source contract, worth $133 million, is for fives years of Mission Operations, Systems Engineering and Software (MOSES-2) services, NASA said in a June 29 statement.
Under the contract, Lockheed will maintain Hubble’s flight and ground systems, and “all elements of operations other than science operations,” NASA said.
Built by Lockheed Martin, Hubble was launched in 1990 and has been serviced four times in space. The spacecraft eventually will re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and be destroyed unless a future mission boosts it away from the planet. After the telescope’s fourth on-orbit servicing in 2009, NASA said that Hubble could fly until at least 2014.
Hubble’s planned successor, the long-delayed, budget-busting James Webb Space Telescope, is scheduled to launch no sooner than September 2015.