JPL Selects TRW as Industry Partner for NASA Star-Mapping Mission.

REDONDO BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 11, 1998--TRW (NYSE:TRW) has been selected by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, Calif., to be its industry partner in designing and producing a spacecraft that will revolutionize scientists' ability to produce images of stars, search for new planets around stars and measure star distances from the Earth.

The contract, awarded Sept. 9, covers the "formulation" phase of NASA's Space Interferometry Mission (SIM), the first in a series of observatories planned for deployment early in the 21st century as part of NASA's Origins program.

Formulation will include SIM feasibility studies and concept definition. The contract also contains an option for a follow-on "implementation" phase, which will include detailed design, manufacturing, integration and test, and orbital operations.

"TRW welcomes the opportunity to join JPL's industry team for this challenging deep-space mission," said Joanne Maguire, vice president and general manager, TRW Space & Laser Programs Division, "and we applaud them for defining this innovative, new approach for partnering with industry.

"By coupling their expertise in interferometry with industry strengths in building high-precision spacecraft, instruments and pointing systems, JPL has defined a program structure that's optimized for cost efficiency and mission success.

"This award also extends TRW's legacy of building mission-enabling spacecraft for NASA's challenging space science missions, including the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, launched in 1991, and the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), scheduled for launch in early 1999," added Maguire.

SIM will use a high-precision optical instrument called an interferometer to measure small changes in star positions hundreds of times more accurately than the best available mapping system today.

It will also allow scientists to produce images of exotic objects such as the centers of galaxies or the dense cores of star clusters with a resolution at least four times better than that of the Hubble Space Telescope.

The SIM procurement is unique in that the industry partners selected by JPL have the opportunity to work on the program from beginning to end without having to compete for subsequent phases of the program.

The JPL-led team will include TRW as the spacecraft industry partner and Lockheed Martin as the instrument industry partner. At the end of formulation, the team will move directly into SIM implementation, following review and approval of the formulation phase results by a NASA review board.

"Formulation" is a newly coined NASA term for the first phase of a program. It covers program phases previously known as Phase A (feasibility study) and Phase B (concept definition). Program phases previously known as Phase C (detailed design), D (manufacturing, integration and test) and E (orbital operations) are now grouped under the heading "implementation."

During the SIM formulation phase, JPL, TRW and Lockheed Martin will define, optimize and perform risk-reduction analyses on the SIM spacecraft design, its interferometer and the interface between the two. The goal, according to Jerry Gliksman, TRW's SIM program manager, is to define and implement an approach that will produce the most science "return" possible for the SIM budget available.

"SIM requires the ability to measure star positions to within an accuracy of a few micro-arc-seconds," he explained. "That's equivalent to being able to distinguish two points of light separated by the thickness of a sheet of paper from a distance of 3,000 miles, the distance from Los Angeles to New York City."

To achieve this level of precision, he added, the SIM spacecraft, the structure that holds the instrument and the instrument itself must be as free as possible of vibration and thermally induced changes in their shape or position.

"We plan to take advantage of mature vibration control technology developed here at TRW," said Gliksman. "We also plan to use state-of-the-art composite materials with extremely low coefficients of thermal expansion to build SIM's major optical and instrument support structure."

NASA's program schedule calls for SIM to be launched in 2005 aboard a medium launch vehicle. It will be launched into deep space in a so-called "Earth-trailing" orbit around the Sun. The orbit derives its name from the fact that SIM's orbital radius will be comparable to the Sun-Earth radius, creating the sense that it is "following" the Earth in its orbit around the Sun.

TRW has been developing scientific, communications and environmental satellite systems for NASA since 1958.

In addition to its work on SIM, the company is currently studying the architectures and technologies needed to implement several of NASA's future space astronomy missions, including the Next Generation Space Telescope, which is also part of the Origins program, and Constellation-X, the next major NASA X-ray mission after AXAF.

Based in Cleveland, TRW provides advanced technology products and services for automotive, space and defense, and information technology markets worldwide. The company's 1997 sales totaled nearly $12 billion. TRW news releases are available on the corporate Web site: http://www.trw.com.

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