NASA awards contract for space telescope mission

NASA has awarded a contract to Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corporation, Boulder, Colorado, for the primary instrument components for the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST).

Called the Wide Field Instrument (WFI) Opto-Mechanical Assembly, the cost-plus-award-fee contract has a value of approximately $113.2 million. The period of performance is from May 2018 through June 2026.

Managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, WFIRST is fully-funded for Fiscal Year 2018. Work will continue on the mission in this time period until appropriations for Fiscal Year 2019 have been determined.

The contract requires Ball Aerospace to design, analyze, develop, fabricate, integrate, test and evaluate the Wide Field Instrument Opto-Mechanical Assembly for the WFIRST mission. In addition, Ball will support the subsequent integration, test, evaluation, and validation of the WFI.

Ball also will provide post-delivery support to payload and observatory integration and testing, and to prelaunch, launch and commissioning activities at the Mission Operations Center, and supply and maintain the instrument ground support equipment.

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