Raytheon Engineers to Design Spaceship

Raytheon Engineers to Design Spaceship
A group of Tucson engineers will design a spaceship to get Americans to the moon, a first step in an eventual manned mission to Mars.

Tucson-based Raytheon Missile Systems was awarded a NASA contract Wednesday to study and develop preliminary concepts for human lunar exploration for the Project Constellation Moon-to-Mars program, the company said yesterday.

The NASA contract is worth nearly $1 million with an option for an additional six-month period for another $1 million.

Work by engineers at the missile plant on the South Side began yesterday, said Sara Hammond, a missile plant spokeswoman.

The Missile Systems engineers are forming a six-month study team to define the various system requirements and come up with a design for the space vehicle and its operating system, Hammond said.

They are working with engineers from two other space industry firms, SAIC of Houston and SpaceHab Corp. of Webster, Texas.

Project Constellation is NASA's response to President Bush's program to re-establish an American presence on the moon and use it as a launch platform for a Mars mission.

"We are developing a sustained and affordable human and robotic program that will explore the solar system and beyond," Navy Rear Adm. Craig E. Steidle, a NASA associate administrator, said in a statement. "We will accomplish this using th