CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA gave its prime contractor at Kennedy Space Center the go-ahead Thursday to hire hundreds of new workers so they can be trained to perform a multi-million dollar overhaul on shuttle Discovery.
And while a decision on exactly where the tune-up will be conducted still is pending, the move could signal a cross-country switch for work that originally was to be done at a shuttle assembly plant located in California's Mojave Desert.
The work package still "could go to either place," said Jack King, a spokesman for United Space Alliance, the company that carries out day-to-day shuttle operations for NASA at the agency's coastal Florida spaceport.
But, he added: "We're going to start moving out as soon as possible to bring a talented team on board to do the job."
NASA periodically sidelines one of its four winged orbiters for extensive structural inspections and modifications, leaving its three other ships to carry out shuttle missions in the meantime. That work traditionally is done at a Boeing plant in Palmdale, Calif.
The agency, however, is facing an $800 million shuttle budget shortfall over the next five years. So senior NASA managers are considering moving planned overhaul work on Discovery here to KSC in an effort to save money.
It typically costs NASA about $2 million to ferry a shuttle orbiter to California and back to Florida atop a modified 747 jumbo jet. In addition, labor, energy and other operational costs are less expensive in Florida than California.In fact, a 1994 NASA study showed that shuttle overhaul work could be done for less money in Florida, but the work nevertheless has remained in California, a state that has a large and powerful congressional delegation.
Officials with the alliance, which is a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, presented a work plan and cost estimates to senior shuttle program managers Thursday.
King would not comment on the content of the plan or the estimated cost of doing the job here at KSC. "That's still being discussed. It's still under negotiation," he said.
Company officials, however, told their NASA counterparts that the alliance would have to start to beef up its KSC work force now in order to train new employees to do a job that is expected to begin early next year.
Senior shuttle program officials, consequently, gave the company the green light to start hiring. What's more, KSC spokesman Joel Wells said the agency agreed to reimburse the company for money spent should a decision ultimately be made to do the work in California.
The exact number of new hires at KSC still is to be determined. But "it's going to take a couple of hundred people," King said.
A firm decision on where the work will be done is to be made in mid-September.
The overhaul will involve thorough inspections of Discovery's airframe and electrical wiring as well as modifications to the ship's various systems. The big-ticket item: Installing an advanced cockpit, work that NASA had considered scrapping due to its projected shuttle budget shortfall.
Similar work on shuttles Atlantis and Columbia, both of which now sport the new cockpit, cost about $70 million for each ship.
All major modifications to shuttle orbiters have been done at the Palmdale plant in the past. The only exception: Structural inspections and minor modifications were performed on Discovery here at KSC back in 1992.
Last launched Aug. 10 on a 12-day International Space Station crew rotation mission, Discovery is NASA's shuttle fleet leader with 30 flights to date. Its next mission: A mid-2003 flight to the orbiting outpost.
advertisement
