NASA Taps Northrop for Jupiter

Northrop Grumman Space Technology of Redondo Beach won a $400 million NASA contract to help design a nuclear-powered spacecraft to Jupiter’s three icy moons.

The Prometheus Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter, or JIMO, contract runs through mid-2008.

Northrop Grumman, the No. 3 U.S. defense contractor, beat out No. 1 Lockheed Martin Corp. and No. 2 Boeing Co.

Northrop Grumman will do its share of the work in Redondo Beach, Space Technology president Wesley Bush said.

Northrop Grumman has enough employees to work on JIMO at least through December 2005, Bush said.

The company may add an unspecified number of employees in the contract’s later years, Bush said. The Northrop Grumman sector has about 8,000 local employees.

Space Technology will work closely with a government team to design the spacecraft.

The company’s duties will include:

* Develop hardware, software and test activities for the design of the spacecraft’s non-nuclear portion.

* Develop the technologies to allow the spacecraft, space reactor, and science instruments to talk to each other.

* Integrate technologies from the government into the spacecraft.

* Assemble, integrate and test the space system.

The government team also will work on the spacecraft design and supply the launch vehicle. The Department of Energy’s Office of Naval Reactors will be responsible for the space reactor.

A completed probe is scheduled for launch in 2012 or later to orbit Jupiter’s planet-sized moons Callisto, Ganymede and Europa in search of signs of water beneath their icy surfaces.

JIMO would represent the first NASA mission using nuclear electric propulsion. The nuclear technology to be used could help in pursuing President Bush’s Vision for Space Exploration, which calls for robotic and human exploration of the Earth’s moon, Mars and worlds beyond.

A reactor such as the one planned for JIMO would mean a spacecraft would not depend on solar energy from the distant sun, according to NASA. Therefore, a nuclear-powered spacecraft would be able to travel more direct routes to planets and perform more dynamic orbital maneuvers once there.

The spacecraft also would have enough electricity to power more advanced scientific instruments and transmit the resulting data to Earth. A reactor also could be used to supply power for exploration missions on the surface of other planets.

The contract win likely will boost Northrop Grumman’s chances of winning future contracts for the president’s space vision, defense analyst Paul Nisbet said.

Nisbet added that Lockheed Martin — not Northrop Grumman or even Boeing — has traditionally dominated NASA work on interplanetary exploration.

The contract win shows Northrop Grumman’s desire to be a “key part” of the president’s exploration initiative, Wesley Bush said.

Northrop Grumman’s stock rose 51 cents on the NYSE Tuesday to close at $53.39.