TRW Wins Study Contract For NASA's Gamma Ray Large Area Space Telescope, Advances To Finals Of Competition To Build Compton GRO Successor.Business Editors & High-Tech Writers REDONDO BEACH, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 5, 2001 TRW (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :TRW) has been awarded a six-month study contract by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a major NASA space research laboratory established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center. GSFC employs approximately 10,000 civil servants and contractors, and is located approximately 6.5 miles northeast of Washington, D.C. , Greenbelt, Md., to refine its development concept for NASA's Gamma Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST GLAST Gamma Ray Large Area Space Telescope ), a successor to the TRW-built Compton Gamma Ray Observatory Compton Gamma Ray Observatory Space observatory in service from 1991 to 2000 that was designed to identify the sources of celestial gamma rays. It was named after physicist Arthur Holly Compton. (Compton GRO). The contract effectively places TRW in the "finals" of the competition slated to select NASA's GLAST mission prime contractor in spring 2002. Scheduled for launch in 2005, GLAST will study celestial phenomena that produce gamma rays, the most energetic form of radiation. "This contract builds on TRW's previous GLAST studies and our experience as the spacecraft producer and integrator of some of NASA's most successful science missions, including Compton GRO and more recently, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory Chandra X-ray Observatory U.S. X-ray space telescope. It was named after astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and was launched into orbit in 1999. Its mirror, with an aperture of 1.2 m (4 ft) and a focal length of 10 m (33 ft), produces unprecedented resolution. ," said Fred Ricker, vice president and general manager, TRW Space & Laser Programs Division. "We're committed to making GLAST equally successful, both as a science mission and as a validation of NASA's Rapid II Spacecraft Catalog approach." Rapid II Catalog is a procurement practice designed to enable rapid development and production of spacecraft using standardized spacecraft products. Under terms of the contract, TRW will work with NASA to define the best ways to modify TRW spacecraft in the catalog to accommodate the interface requirements of the GLAST instruments and the overall requirements of the GLAST mission. TRW expects to use its T-300 line of spacecraft as a baseline for the GLAST mission. GLAST will carry a 3,000-kilogram science payload comprising the GLAST Large Area Telescope (LAT), provided by Stanford University, and the GLAST Burst Monitor, provided by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center The George C. Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), the original home of NASA, is a lead center for propulsion, Space Shuttle propulsion, Shuttle external fuel tank, crew training and payloads, International Space Station (ISS) design and construction, for computers, networks, and , Huntsville, Ala. The instruments will study cosmic phenomena such as gamma ray bursts, neutron stars, supernova remnants and distant galaxies fueled by super massive black holes at their centers. The LAT instrument is expected to be about 30 times more sensitive to gamma ray events than the Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope The Energetic Gamma Ray Experiment Telescope (EGRET) was one of the four scientific instruments on NASA's Compton Gamma Ray Observatory satellite. It detected individual gamma rays with energy from 30 MeV to 30 GeV. used aboard Compton GRO. Based in Cleveland, Ohio, TRW provides advanced technology products and services for global automotive, space and defense, telecommunications and information technology markets. TRW news releases are available on the corporate Web site: www.trw.com. |
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