NASA awards contract to maintain Webb Telescope operations

NASA has selected Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation of Redondo Beach, California, to support the James Webb Space Telescope Phase E – Operations and Sustainment contract.

The contract is a sole source cost-plus-fixed-fee contract with a value of $31,186,099. The period of performance is from December 25 to June 24, 2027. The contractor will provide the products and services required to monitor and maintain Webb spacecraft systems including the spacecraft bus, optics/telescope, and sunshield; maintain and update the spacecraft flight software; and trend spacecraft performance and recommend corrections and updates required for spacecraft health and safety.

The work will be performed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore and at the contractor’s facility.

NASA’s Webb telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is helping solve mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).