LORAL PROVIDES NEW MISSION CONTROL CENTER TO OPERATE SPACE SHUTTLE AND INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION; New Center Will Lower Operating Costs By $20 Million A Year

Business Wire, July 12, 1995

HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 12, 1995--Loral Space Information Systems, a division of Loral Corporation (NYSE:LOR), has developed a new, advanced mission control center at NASA's Johnson Space Center to manage space shuttle flights and operate the International Space Station.

Loral designed the control center under the mission systems contract, valued at approximately $500 million and awarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in December 1989. The contract called for Loral to upgrade the shuttle control center in Houston, Texas, and to develop the capability for operating the International Space Station.

The new control center, which will make its debut during the space shuttle Discovery flight scheduled to launch on July 13, will replace the existing mission control center, which has been in service since the Gemini era in the mid-1960's and which is scheduled to close in 1997. With advanced workstations and high-speed computers, the new center will allow NASA to lower its operating costs.

The advanced technology used in the mission control center allows simultaneous support of both the shuttle and Space Station. In addition, it can process data from payloads and Russian spacecraft, if necessary.

Loral's modern design for the facility employs a distributed processing concept based on local area networks that connect individual flight controller workstations. These workstation computers and other related equipment are linked together by fiber optic cable. Many of the software elements used in the workstations are commercial-off-the-shelf products integrated into the system design. This overall configuration will result in a cost-effective design that minimizes development cost and significantly reduces operations support costs. The new system will be brought on-line for about $75 million under budget and it will help NASA lower its operating costs by $20 million per year. This control center is also the largest and has the highest data processing capacity of any such local area network in the world.

Loral plans to make incremental deliveries of all capabilities needed to achieve both shuttle and Space Station flight operations command and control. The capability to control on orbit phases of shuttle flights was delivered in spring 1995 and full testing was completed in May. Following these tests, the mission control center was certified ready for shuttle flights.

Work continues on the development of capabilities required for command and control and mission planning systems for the Space Station. These are scheduled to be completed in 1999.

Loral Space Information Systems designs and manufactures command and control systems for manned space flight at the Johnson Space Center; provides advanced digital voice systems, head-up displays for shuttle training aircraft, neural net processors, as well as safety, reliability and quality assurance engineering for spacecraft systems. Loral Corporation, headquartered in New York City, is a high-technology company that primarily concentrates in defense electronics, communications, space and systems integration.

CONTACT: Joseph Tedino

703/416-5540