FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SPACEHAB
AWARDED MORE THAN $1 MILLION IN NEW BUSINESS
FOR 2001 RESEARCH FLIGHT;
Company's
Contracts For STS-107 Mission Now Total $36.9 Million
Washington, D.C., August 15, 2000 - SPACEHAB, Inc. (NASDAQ/NMS: SPAB), a leading provider of commercial space services, today announced that it has finalized contract agreements to fly three additional experiments aboard the company's Research Double Module (RDM) on a Space Shuttle mission next year. These agreements, worth more than $1 million, raise the total value of the company's flight contracts for the STS-107 mission to $36.9 million.
SPACEHAB has signed a $922,000 contract to provide space-based research services aboard SPACEHAB's RDM for a European Space Agency (ESA) experiment called ERISTO (European Research in Space and Terrestrial Osteoporosis). The ERISTO experiment will fly, along with many others manifested for the RDM, on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) Space Shuttle research mission STS-107, now scheduled to launch in June 2001.
SPACEHAB also has signed an $83,000 agreement with the Circle for the Promotion of Science and Engineering (CPSE), affiliated with the Tokyo Institute of Technology, and the Japanese Space Utilization Promotion Center (JSUP) of Tokyo to fly a student experiment on STS-107. The experiment, called JUSTSAP S*T*A*R*S™, is being developed by Japanese students under the Space Technology And Research Students (S*T*A*R*S™) program (www.starsprogram.com) managed by SPACEHAB subsidiary Space Media™, Inc. (SMI™).
In addition, SPACEHAB has signed a $40,000 agreement with the Japan Space Utilization Promotion Center (JSUP) and the University of Alabama-Birmingham (UAB) Research Foundation for the flight of a Japan/U.S. Space Protein Crystal Growth (JUSPRO) experiment on STS-107. This agreement covers the flight opportunity, payload integration, and the provision of flight and ground experiment blocks.
"SPACEHAB is happy to support applied microgravity research that could benefit millions of people here on Earth as well as educational endeavors that can engage young people in the excitement of space exploration," said SPACEHAB President David A. Rossi. "These projects help to pave the way toward expanded scientific and industrial research and educational activities aboard the International Space Station."
ERISTO involves academic and industry partners and is the first experiment that SPACEHAB will handle for ESA's Microgravity Applications Promotion Programme. SPACEHAB is already under contract to fly a similar experiment, using similar equipment, for the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) on STS-107. CSA's experiment, OSTEO, also relates to the study of osteoporosis. STS-107 will mark the second flight of CSA's OSTEO experiment, following its initial successful operation on orbit by former Senator John Glenn on Shuttle mission STS-95 in 1998. Millenium Biologix of Kingston, Ontario, Canada, builds the equipment used for these space-based experiments and also provides related ground-based laboratory equipment, used worldwide for research into osteoporosis, a debilitating condition involving bone mass loss.
The JUSTSAP S*T*A*R*S program is a product of discussions held at a Japan-U.S. Science, Technology and Space Application Program (JUSTSAP) workshop in November 1999. The JUSTSAP S*T*A*R*S contract covers sponsorship of the S*T*A*R*S "Super Nova" school that will develop and fly the experiment as well as sponsorship of a limited number of additional schools that will participate in some elements of the student research program.
The JUSPRO protein-crystal-growth experiment will be flown on SPACEHAB's Commercial Macromolecular Protein Crystal Growth Facility, managed in partnership with UAB.
The agreement to fly the ERISTO experiment was coordinated by SPACEHAB's European marketing agent, INTOSPACE, of Leiden, Netherlands, and involves the amendment of existing contracts for STS-107 flight services. The JUSTSAP S*T*A*R*S and JUSPRO contracts were coordinated by SPACEHAB's Japanese marketing agent Mitsubishi Corporation.
Founded in 1984, with more than $100 million in annual revenue, SPACEHAB, Inc., is a leading provider of commercial space services. The company is the first to develop, own, and operate habitat modules and cargo carriers providing laboratory facilities and resupply capabilities aboard NASA's Space Shuttles. It also supports astronaut training at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston and builds space-flight trainers and mockups. SPACEHAB's Astrotech subsidiary provides commercial satellite processing services at facilities in Florida and California in support of a range of expendable launch vehicles, including Lockheed Martin's Atlas and Boeing's Delta and Sea Launch rockets. SPACEHAB's newest strategic growth initiative, Space Media, Inc. (SMI™, a subsidiary), will bring space into homes and classrooms worldwide with television and Internet broadcasting from the International Space Station.
This release contains forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in such statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, whether the company will fully realize the economic benefits under its NASA and other customer contracts, the timing and mix of Space Shuttle missions, the successful development and commercialization of new space assets, technological difficulties, product demand, timing of new contracts, launches and business, market acceptance risks, the effect of economic conditions, uncertainty in government funding, the impact of competition, and other risks detailed in the Company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Linda Billings
Director
of Communications
SPACEHAB,
Inc.
202/488-3500;
toll-free 888/647-9543
billings@hqspacehab.com