As NASA prepares for the retirement of the International Space Station, some of its Johnson Space Center contracts are winding down toward the end of this year.
The agency confirmed to the Houston Business Journal that most international partners and long-running private contractors working on the ISS, such as The Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA), are likely to extend those contracts until the end of the space station's planned life in 2030 and potentially beyond. NASA awarded the contract for the ISS' deorbit vehicle to SpaceX, which is set to relocate its headquarters from California to Texas.
Data from NASA's procurement services shows that contracts have been awarded to private space missions and infrastructure expansions at the JSC, but only two contracts are currently running under the category of "space vehicles." NASA told the HBJ that one contract is for the Russian-built Zarya module — the first component of the ISS to be launched in 1998 — while the other, awarded to Hamilton Sunstrand, the predecessor company of Collins Aerospace, is for the extravehicular mobility unit, another term for the spacesuit. The EMU contract was obligated just under $50 million to date in FY 2024, while the Zarya contract was obligated $2.2 million.
For contracts valued at over $25 million, $1.1 billion has been obligated to companies by JSC in fiscal year 2024 to date. For comparison, 2023 saw $1.8 billion awarded, and 2022 saw $1.9 billion awarded for the full fiscal year.
Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin Corp. (NYSE: LMT) leads all JSC contractors in FY 2024 with $308.6 million awarded to date. Most obligations to Lockheed Martin this year are coming through the company’s design and development of the Orion spacecraft for NASA’s Artemis manned missions. The design is taking place in Littleton, Colorado.
A JSC spokesperson told the HBJ that the agency does not make any specific efforts to prioritize contractors closer to Houston, though for some services that are taking place directly at JSC, local contractors made the most sense to use. Other contracts require samples to be returned to Houston within a certain period of time, though the work is performed elsewhere.
Outside of Space Station awards, the company that’s received the most in NASA obligations is Houston-based Axiom Space, which also received the most money for contract orders being performed in Houston.
Axiom Space has two active contracts with NASA under the Extravehicular Activity program to replace the EMU program — one contract was awarded in 2022 and another in 2023. Those contracts are related to the development of spacewalking suits for both Axiom’s own missions and to potentially replace NASA’s current suit designs.
Axiom Space, co-founded in Houston by Kamal Ghaffarian and Michael Suffredini, is one of the companies bidding to replace the ISS with its own commercial space station, the Axiom Station. The company is also building out a manufacturing campus for Axiom Station at the Houston Spaceport, and the first phase of that building opened in December 2023.
In a previous interview with the HBJ, Matt Ondler, president of Axiom Space, said the JSC’s experience in building and testing craft was one of the advantages that kept the company in Houston to build Axiom Station — despite overtures from other states.
“There was a time a few years ago where we were being lured by the state of Florida with some economic incentives to move there, but we want to be a Houston company. And there's huge advantages here,” Ondler said. “When we first wanted to do a test of that space window, I knew one of my former colleagues at NASA, she's now [one of] the space window experts in NASA. So I invited her over to talk to my young engineer who had never built the space window before. And, you know, she provided some guidance and some recommendations. … And because of that, he was able to build a very, very capable space window on its first try that performed really well during testing.”
Two Houston companies not working on spacecraft of their own also ranked within the top 10 for most contracted dollars in 2024 to date. KBRwyle, part of Houston-based KBR Inc. (NYSE: KBR), is currently executing a contract valued at nearly $900 million for mission services related to the ISS and Artemis.
Meanwhile, Barrios Technology, a family-owned contractor, is wrapping up a contract valued at $272.2 million for technology relating to human spaceflight services at Johnson.
Congress slashed NASA’s 2024 budget, the first cut in agency funding since 2013. JSC Director Vanessa Wyche told the HBJ in a previous interview that those cuts underscored the importance of new funding from the Texas Legislature.
“We are continuing to be that leader in Houston spaceflight, and we will continue to be that leader,” Wyche said. “But we must be doing it in a way that we’re collaborating with many different people while maintaining our strategic leadership. We’re getting ready to do flight tests for Boeing, we have the Orion spacecraft for Artemis. If that doesn’t make us Space City, I don’t know what does.”
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