September 9, 2004 - MEDIA ADVISORY
SPACEHAB CELEBRATES SUCCESS WITH LOCAL LEADERS
Many of Brevard County's aerospace elite gathered on August 26, 2004 at SPACEHAB's Payload Processing Facility in Cape Canaveral to commemorate the company's twenty successful years of commercial space development. August 22, 1984 marked the date of SPACEHAB's beginning, which started with an idea, sketched out on a cocktail napkin by its founders, for increasing the capabilities of the space shuttle, while opening the doors for space commercialization and tourism. Today, the company has supported 18 space shuttle missions from its location in Cape Canaveral and helped process over 200 spacecraft, many from its Titusville facilities.
Joining the "Toast to Twenty" festivities from NASA were Space Operations
Associate Administrator, William Readdy and KSC Center Director, Jim Kennedy.
Also in attendance was Bill Sample from SGS, former astronaut Bruce Melnick
from The Boeing Company, and Susan Cossey, Director for the Canaveral Port
Authority, to name just a few. SPACEHAB President and Chief Executive Officer,
Michael Kearney, addressed the group with a toast to the company's and industry's
future stating that, "May the next twenty years be filled with more celebratory
triumphs, greater accomplishments in human space flight, and the further 
development
of long-lasting relationships within this exciting industry." He mentioned
that as a provider of manned and unmanned payload processing services, a developer
of flight hardware assets, and an entrepreneurial force in space access applications,
SPACEHAB serves as a bridge from the current age of government space exploration
to the future of private space utilization.
Recently, SPACEHAB Houston and Florida locations completed the transition of its engineering and operations functions from its Boeing subcontractor to an in-house capability, further supporting the company's pursuit of new opportunities that arise from the Nation's new Vision for Space Exploration announced by President Bush earlier this year. The results are showing success as SPACEHAB recently announced that it was awarded a six-month NASA study contract valued at approximately $1.0 million to support the space agency's new exploration initiatives.
SPACEHAB, Incorporated ( www.spacehab.com ) is a leading provider of commercial and government space services with three primary business units. The Flight Services business unit develops, owns, and operates habitat and laboratory modules and cargo carriers aboard NASA's Space Shuttles for Space Station resupply and research purposes. SPACEHAB's Astrotech subsidiary provides payload processing support services for both commercial and government customers at company-owned facilities in Florida and California. The Company's Government Services business unit supports NASA's Johnson Space Center providing configuration management, product engineering, and support services for both the Space Station and Space Shuttle programs.Photo Caption : SPACEHAB employees (L-R) Dan Bland, Vladimir Fishel, Brian Harrington, Mike Chewning enjoy a photo opportunity with NASA Space Operations Associate Administrator, William Readdy ( center).
For more information, contact:
Kimberly
Campbell |