NASA Established

HOUSTON, July 28, 2008 / PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX / - Constellation Program at NASA has selected 11 companies and an independent university to develop concepts that contribute to how astronauts live and work on the moon.

Each organization will lead a 180-day study focused on a theme related to the lunar surface. Some agencies and themes are as follows:

-- Other options packages: Oceaneering Space Systems of Houston

-- Avionics: Honeywell International, Inc. Glendale, Ariz.,

-- Save Energy: ATK Space Systems Group Brigham City, Utah, Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio, and Hamilton Sundstrand of Canoga Park, CA

-- Minimum Housing Functions: The Boeing Company of Huntington Beach, California, ILC Dover of Frederica, Del., and the University of Maryland, College Park

-- Move regolith Methods: Astrobotic Technology Inc. of Pittsburgh and Honeybee Robotics in New York

-- Software: The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and United Space Alliance in Houston
The total amount of approximately $ 2 million, with a maximum of $ 250000 each.

"These studies provide new ideas to help the Constellation program to develop innovative, reliable requirements for systems to be used when establishing outposts on the moon," said Jeff Hanley, program manager Constellation NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The recommendations of these studies will help determine options, to identify the basic functions of lunar habitats, innovative design and avionics, software, energy storage and equipment ideas and techniques that can contribute to prepare for the post of advanced lunar site.

The Constellation program for the Advancement of NASA is the next generation fleet of spacecraft - including the Ares I and Ares V rockets, the Orion crew capsule, the Altair lunar landing and lunar surface systems -- To send humans beyond low Earth orbit and back to the moon. NASA plans to create a post of Man on the Moon with a series of successive lunar missions from 2020. The lunar surface systems May of habitat, pressure and without pressure robots, communication and navigation elements, control of electricity and use of natural resources.