NASA has awarded a contract to Vertex Aerospace, LLC of Madison, Mississippi, for labor support to ensure the continued safe operations of the Sonny Carter Training Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory Operations Contract II has a two-year base period beginning October 1, followed by five option periods ranging from one to two years with a possible extension of services until 2034. The total potential value of the contract is $265.2 million. The contract includes a cost plus award fee portion, which covers the core work of the contract, and an option to transition to cost plus fixed fee and vice versa.
According to the deal, Vertex Aerospace will provide the technical, management and administrative work necessary to ensure the reliability of integrated hardware and software systems used at the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory to prepare astronauts for human spaceflight missions.
The Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory is a unique facility that is available at all times for critical training and mission support operations., and remains capable of supporting the dynamic nature of human spaceflight. The laboratory has a 6.2 million gallon swimming pool, an essential tool for spacewalk training, which simulates the weightlessness astronauts experience in space.
