SPACEHAB and Astrium Strengthen Strategic Partnership; European Company Investing $15.4 Million in SPACEHAB’s Cargo Carrier Program
SPACEHAB, Inc. , a
leading provider of commercial space services, today announced that Astrium
GmbH of Bremen, Germany, is significantly expanding its strategic partnership
with the company through a sale-leaseback agreement for SPACEHAB’s Integrated
Cargo Carrier (ICC) program worth $15.4 million in cash and services to
SPACEHAB.
Under the agreement, SPACEHAB and Astrium have agreed to expand the ICC
program to offer new versions of this flight-proven unpressurized payload
carrier, which is designed to fly in the cargo bay of NASA’s Space Shuttle.
New variations of ICC services will include deployable and vertical cargo
carriers.
Future enhancements may also include an EXPRESS carrier, a
propulsion pallet and a cryogenic carrier.
The partners will continue to
provide the basic ICC, which SPACEHAB has already flown on three Shuttle
missions devoted to resupply of the International Space Station (ISS).
Formerly DaimlerChrysler Aerospace, Astrium purchased an 11.5 percent
equity stake in SPACEHAB in fall 1999. With this latest investment in the ICC
program, Astrium further augments the European company’s strategic partnership
with SPACEHAB: Astrium acquires equity in the ICC program, and SPACEHAB
continues to manage the ICC program while increasing its cash flow.
Astrium, the ICC mission integration contractor, is the maker of the keel-
yoke assembly that anchors the ICC in the Shuttle cargo bay.
Josef Kind,
President of Astrium’s space infrastructure division and a member of
SPACEHAB’s board of directors, said that he is pleased to be expanding this
external flight hardware program with SPACEHAB. “The ICC has already played a
key role in ISS resupply, and we are confident that the program offers an
affordable, quality solution for future unpressurized space station needs,”
said Kind.
Slated for its fourth flight to the ISS in March 2001, the ICC
(http://www.spacehab.com/icc ) is an externally mounted, unpressurized,
aluminum flat-bed pallet, coupled with a keel-yoke assembly, that enhances the
Space Shuttle’s capability to store and transport cargo. With a carrying
capacity of up to 6,000 pounds, the pallet can carry equipment and tools
mounted on both top and bottom, offering easy deployment to the ISS by flight-
suited astronauts.
With 7,500 employees in Germany, France, and Great Britain, Astrium is
Europe’s leading space company. A newly formed merger of Matra Marconi Space
and the space divisions of DaimlerChrysler Aerospace, Astrium provides
comprehensive and advanced solutions to satisfy all space needs in a timely,
cost effective manner.
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, 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.(TM), 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.
