Washington, DC, Feb. 19, 1999 – SPACEHAB, Inc. (Nasdaq: SPAB) announced today that a $5 million contract has been signed with the first customer to use the Company's co-owned commercial research facility aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

The Colorado School of Mines’ Center for Commercial Applications of Combustion in Space (CCACS) of Golden, Colorado, will use the SPACEHAB-funded furnace called Space-DRUMS™ to process exotic glasses and ceramic materials using a unique combustion technique in the microgravity environment aboard the ISS.

A partnership between SPACEHAB and Guigné Technologies Limited of Newfoundland, Canada, Space-DRUMS™ (Dynamically Responding Ultrasonic Matrix System) uses acoustic levitation, or sound waves, to hold fluid or solid material samples in place in microgravity while they are being processed aboard the Shuttle or ISS. This "containerless processing," prevents the samples from touching the walls of their containers, thus eliminating physical defects and opportunities for contamination.

Originally developed under the sponsorship of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and now funded by SPACEHAB, the patented facility could lead to the creation of unique glasses and ceramics for use as bone replacement, industrial filters, and fiber-optic cable for telecommunications. Space-DRUMS™ also will help fluid physics researchers to understand the fundamental nature of turbulence.

Space-DRUMS™ is slated to be the first commercial research facility on the ISS when it is delivered in 2000. "With the Space-DRUMS™ facility already attracting customers, SPACEHAB is paving the way for commercial utilization of the space station for research and commerce," SPACEHAB President David A. Rossi said.

SPACEHAB, with its Johnson Engineering and Astrotech subsidiaries, 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.

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