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News Release For Immediate Release
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Kennedy Space Center, FL, January 23, 1998 — The launch yesterday evening of the Space Shuttle Endeavour marked a major milestone for SPACEHAB Inc. (NASDAQ: SPAB): its tenth mission in space. Endeavour is carrying SPACEHAB's Logistics Double Module on a resupply mission to the Russian Space Station Mir. This is the sixth of seven scheduled SPACEHAB missions to Mir, providing logistics services in support of cosmonauts and American astronauts living and working aboard the space station. Included in the 7,500-plus pounds of cargo stowed in SPACEHAB's Module is a new air conditioning unit for Mir, loaded only days before launch. The unit was rushed to SPACEHAB's Cape Canaveral Payload Processing Facility last week. After preparation, it was loaded into the Double Module in Endeavour's cargo bay with the Shuttle in vertical position on the launch pad. "By the time we had the unit foam-wrapped and strapped into our customized pallet, the air conditioner weighed more than 275 pounds - by far the heaviest article we have ever stowed in our Module after it was on the Shuttle pad," said Dr. Shelley A. Harrison, SPACEHAB Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "This is an example of SPACEHAB's ability to remain flexible and responsive to critical customer requirements." The bulky air conditioner unit was lowered by winch 65 feet to the aft end of the Double Module with barely an inch clearance in the passage from the Orbiter to the Module. Additional cargo carried in the Module includes Russian logistics items, food, clothing, batteries, and a gyrodyne. Also aboard is the Individual Equipment Seat Liner specifically designed for astronaut Andrew Thomas. Thomas will relieve Dr. David Wolf, who has been on Mir since September 1997. The first SPACEHAB mission, in 1993, pioneered an historic role for commercial enterprise in space. "Employing commercial business practices and assuming its own risks, SPACEHAB has successfully demonstrated to NASA a faster, better, fixed-price approach for space development," said Dr. Harrison. "SPACEHAB Modules are produced at costs far below those of traditional cost-plus contractors," Harrison noted. "Also, they can be configured, tested and loaded in as little as 90 days, and their unique system design allows for just-in-time stowage of critical mission items, sometimes as late as one day before lift-off," he added. Harrison cited SPACEHAB's reliability, cost effectiveness and flexibility as critical components in the drive to private space development. One more logistics mission to Mir is scheduled - STS-91 in May 1998 - for which a SPACEHAB Module will again be the primary payload. Future SPACEHAB missions will concentrate on space-based research and on logistics support for the new International Space Station. SPACEHAB, Inc., with its ASTROTECH subsidiary, is the world's leading provider of commercial payload processing services for both astronaut-tended and unmanned payloads. SPACEHAB is the first company to commercially develop, own and operate habitable modules that provide space-based laboratory facilities and logistics resupply aboard the U.S. Space Shuttles to support people living and working in space.
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