Barbara Selby

NASA Headquarters, Washington, D.C. January 28, 1991

(Phone: 703/557-5609)

Weldon Payne
UT-Calspan, Ctr. For Adv. Space Propulsion, Tullahoma, Tenn.
(Phone: 615/455-0631)

RELEASE: 91-14

INDUSTRY TEAM SELECTED FOR COMET COMMERCIAL

DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

James T. Rose, NASA Assistant Administrator for the Office of

Commercial Programs, today announced that the University of Tennessee-
Calspan's Center for Advanced Space Propulsion (CASP), Tullahoma, has
selected three industrial firms for establishing launch and recovery
of the unmanned, Earth-orbital Commercial Experiment Transporter
(COMET) space system.

Joe Pawlick, Assistant Director for Commercial Transportation and

COMET Program Manager at CASP, said "We're taking the initial step
toward establishing an entirely new U.S. industry. When successful,
Centers for the Commercial Development of Space (CCDS) payloads and
those of their industrial partners will be placed into and returned
from the unique environment of space by COMET."

The contractors selected and their component responsibilities

are:

o Space Industries, Inc. (SII), Houston, - payload

integration, orbital operations and recovery system
and services

o Space Services, Inc. (SSI), Houston, a division of EER

Systems - launch vehicle and services

o Westinghouse Electric Co., Millersville, Md. -

systems engineering and service module

Upon completion of contract negotiations by CASP, such contracts

will be prepared for inclusion in the CCDS grant by NASA who has
budgeted $10.5 million in 1991 as initial funding for COMET. CASP is
one of seven NASA CCDSs involved in the establishment of COMET.
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The COMET launch vehicle will place a service module and a

recovery system, called a freeflyer, into a 300 nautical mile Earth
orbit at a 40-degree inclination to the Equator. The 1,800-pound
freeflyer will be released with payloads aboard both the service
module and recovery system. The latter system will contain about 9
cubic feet of payload volume while another 6 cubic feet will be in the
non-recoverable service module.

The recovery system will separate from the freeflyer after about
a month in orbit to be retrieved at a southwest U.S. location. The
service module is designed to support non-recoverable experiments for
at least 100 days after the recovery system reenters.

SSI's and SII's licensing of COMET for launch from either NASA's
Goddard Wallops Island Flight Facility or Cape Canaveral will be
governed by U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) regulations.

CASP is responsible for COMET program management and systems

engineering. The Center for Advanced Materials, Columbus, Ohio, will
provide screening and selection services for COMET payloads. The
other five centers and their responsibilities are:

o BioServe Space Technologies, University of Colorado,

Boulder - recovery system and services

o Center for Power, Texas A&M University, College

Station - service module

o Consortium for Materials Development in Space,

University of Alabama, Huntsville - launch vehicle
and services

o Center for Macromolecular Crystallography, University

of Alabama in Birmingham - payload integration

o Space Vacuum Epitaxy Center, University of Houston

- orbital operations
- end -