NASA awards $9.9 million IDIQ contract

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Burns & McDonnell has been awarded an indefinite delivery indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for work at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston.

Under terms of the $9.9 million non-exclusive IDIQ contract, Burns & McDonnell's Houston and Kansas City offices will co-manage selected facilities improvement projects at JSC and Ellington Field in Houston, and at the White Sands Testing Facility in New Mexico. Specific projects are expected to be defined in the near future.

The JSC includes a number of specialized facilities dedicated to development and testing of materials and systems to determine if they can withstand the rigors of space flight. Those include the Space Shuttle Orbiter Mockup and Integration laboratory, where astronauts train in full-scale space shuttle compartments and the Weightless Environment Training Facility which provides controlled neutral buoyancy in water to simulate weightlessness and allow astronauts to train, test and evaluate procedures for extravehicular assignments and work load limits in space.

Other facilities at the JSC are dedicated to:

• Aircraft and component fabrication and assembly
• Operations and control
• Flight simulation
• Specialized system testing
• Propulsion system testing
• Aircraft maintenance repair and overhaul
• Specialized training
• Avionics testing and maintenance
• Computer operations and backup systems
• Test stands
• Support facilities

Burns & McDonnell is committed to providing design services that conform to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards. The LEED program provides a set of standards for integrating high-performance and environmentally responsive design and construction and an accreditation system for engineering and construction professionals. Burns & McDonnell has 32 LEED-accredited professionals on staff representing various disciplines.

In addition, Burns & McDonnell has extensive experience in providing engineering design, construction and environmental services for several federal agencies and the military, including Houston staff experience working on projects at the JSC. Burns & McDonnell has extensive government and aerospace industry experience spanning more than 65 years, ranging from design and construction of B-29 training facilities during World War II to current facility design work in support of the F-35 Joint Strike fighter testing and assembly program at Lockheed Martin, in Fort Worth, Texas.

The JSC has been the home of NASA's Space Shuttle Program for more than 20 years and is the lead center for design and implementation of the International Space Station. The center's mission includes design, development and testing of spacecraft and associated systems for manned flight, selection and training of astronauts, planning and conducting manned missions and participation in medical, engineering and scientific experiments.

Ellington Field, located near the JSC in Houston's Clear Lake area, is where NASA's WB-57 high altitude research aircraft are housed and maintained. The White Sands Test Facility is NASA's primary resource for testing potentially hazardous materials, space flight components and rocket propulsion systems.

About Burns & McDonnell

Burns & McDonnell provides engineering, architecture, construction, environmental and consulting services. Nearly 2,200 engineers, architects, scientists, planners, estimators, economists, technicians and other professionals work in 20 offices located throughout the U.S. and abroad. Founded in 1898, Burns & McDonnell is 100 percent employee-owned.