NASA/TRW Team Wins National Space Club Award for Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Business Editors & Aerospace Writers

REDONDO BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 2, 2001

A team of scientists and engineers from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), Huntsville, Ala., and TRW (NYSE:TRW) has been selected as the winner of the National Space Club's 2001 Nelson P. Jackson Aerospace Award.

Named in honor of Nelson P. ("Pete") Jackson, founder and past president of the National Space Club, the award is presented annually for outstanding contributions to the missile, aircraft and space fields. The NASA/TRW team was honored for the on-orbit success of NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, the world's most capable X-ray observatory. As NASA's Chandra prime contractor, TRW led the industry team that designed, built and deployed Chandra for MSFC in July 1999. This year's honor marks the fifth time TRW has won or shared in the Jackson Aerospace Award.

Dr. Alan Bunner, the director of NASA's Structure and Evolution of the Universe theme, and Craig Staresinich, TRW's Chandra program manager, accepted the award on behalf of the team at the annual Goddard Memorial Dinner, held on March 30 in Washington, D.C.

"The Chandra mission continues to be one of the most successful and most productive X-ray space science missions NASA has ever undertaken," said Bunner. "This award is a tribute to the vision, engineering talents and dedication to mission success of every member of the government and industry team that collaborated on the project."

"This award is a result of the TRW/NASA partnership that has successfully developed and produced spacecraft for NASA's most challenging missions for more than 40 years," said Staresinich. "In collaboration with the science teams from NASA and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, we expect to remain a significant partner in space astronomy discoveries for many years to come."

The TRW-led contractor team that designed and built Chandra included Eastman Kodak, which built the X-ray telescope; Hughes Danbury Optical Systems, which produced the X-ray mirrors; and Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., which built the integrated science instrument module and Chandra's aspect camera.

Chandra's science instruments were provided by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), Penn State University, MIT, Space Research Organization of The Netherlands, and the Max Planck Institute in Germany. SAO conducts the Chandra science mission for NASA while TRW leads the Chandra flight operations team at the Chandra Operations Control Center, Cambridge, Mass.

With headquarters in Cleveland, Ohio, TRW Inc. provides advanced technology products and services for the global automotive, aerospace, telecommunications and information systems markets. TRW news releases are available on the Internet at www.trw.com.