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For Immediate Release: SPACEHAB Subsidiary Receives $100,000 Launch-Site Upgrade Grant Vienna, VA, Aug. 24, 1998 — Astrotech Space Operations, a wholly owned subsidiary of SPACEHAB, Inc. (Nasdaq: SPAB), has been awarded a $100,000 grant from the State of California. Astrotech, the leading U.S. commercial provider of satellite launch processing services, will use the funding to make launch-site infrastructure improvements to its facilities at Vandenberg Air Force Base. The Highway-to-Space Competitive Grant Program award, announced Aug. 18, is part of the California Legislature’s $500,000 effort to enhance or promote commercial space infrastructure and space flight in that state. The Highway-to-Space Program is administered for the California Trade and Commerce Agency by the Western Commercial Space Center. Other 1998 Highway-to-Space grant recipients include Bennett Optical Research, Inc., Ridgecrest, Calif; Pioneer Rocketplane, Lakewood, Colo.; and Orbital Sciences Corporation, Dulles, Va. Astrotech began construction of new facilities on 60 acres of leased land at Vandenberg in 1993 and has provided commercial payload processing in those facilities since July 1994. The Company has processed both government and commercial satellites, including 50 Iridium satellites for launch on Boeing Delta 2 boosters from Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg. Astrotech also provides payload processing services near Kennedy Space Center, Florida, where more than 80 satellites have been processed, and is under contract to Boeing in support of Sea Launch, an innovative commercial space operation headquartered in Long Beach, California. The $100,000 Highway-to-Space grant will partially fund the first phase of the Astrotech Site Infrastructure Improvement Program. This three-year, time-phased infrastructure improvement program will facilitate construction of additional Astrotech payload processing facilities to support increasing commercial launch operations at Vandenberg. Successive infrastructure improvements will include access road enhancements and electrical power distribution and service feed upgrades. The Astrotech Infrastructure Improvement Program is scheduled to be completed by June 2001. Vic Bouquet, Astrotech’s General Manager of the Vandenberg facility, expressed his appreciation for the State of California’s recognition of the key role Astrotech plays in support of the commercial space industry at Vandenberg. "We are honored to be recognized as an important and integral part of the commercial space industry in California," Bouquet said. Astrotech’s corporate parent, SPACEHAB, is the world’s leading provider of commercial payload processing services for manned and unmanned payloads. SPACEHAB is the first company to commercially develop, own and operate habitable modules that provide laboratory facilities and logistics re-supply aboard NASA’s Space Shuttles. The Company also supports NASA astronaut training at Johnson Space Center, Houston, through its wholly owned subsidiary, Johnson Engineering. FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
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