International Space Station (NASA image)

Boeing announced in a press release that NASA awarded the company a contract extension for sustaining engineering at the International Space Station (ISS). The extension begins October 1st and continues for five years, into 2015.

The sustaining engineering that Boeing will provide for the ISS will include software and hardware support for the U.S. segment of the space station and support for common software and hardware utilized by international partners.

Joy Bryant, Boeing Vice President and Program Manager for ISS, said that “Boeing’s knowledge of the International Space Station allows us to safely fly and operate the station to 2015, setting the stage to enable ISS operations until 2020, and potentially extend operations through 2028. We are partnering with NASA to ensure the health of the station’s many subsystems in order to pave the way for ground-breaking science and research aboard the laboratories on station in the years ahead.”

Boeing will perform the work at several locations including Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, FL., Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Al., and NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX.

The services that Boeing will also provide include:

• management of ISS subsystems
• analytical integration and flight support
• on-orbit engineering support
• monitoring and trending system performance
• anomaly resolution, specialty engineering, and oversight of ongoing maintenance

During the course of the contract extension Boeing will purchase spare components and modify currents systems.