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National Aeronautics and Space Administration Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center Houston, Texas 77058 AC 713 483-5111

Rh Kari Fluegel Release No. 90-026

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Thursday put out a call for proposals to lease space and related services on a pressurized manned module to expand the orbiters' middeck locker experiment capability.

Called the Commercial Middeck Augmentation Module, the commercially-developed and owned module will ride in the payload bay when carried, be accessible through the air lock and add the volume equivalent of about 50 middeck lockers to the orbiters' capacity.

The Request for Proposals seeks responses from companies that can provide the module for lease by the government; physical and operational integration of the module and the experiment requirements; operator training; and data collection, processing and distribution.

Need for the additional capability emanates from NASA's Commercial Development of Space Program. In support of private sector research initiatives, NASA is offering shuttle-based flight research opportunities through its grant program for Centers for the Commercial Development of Space. The experiments will involve breakthrough technologies in areas such as materials processing, protein crystal growth, biotechnology and fluid dynamics. The government's minimum requirements are for the lease of 175 middeck locker volume equivalents and related services which are to be provided over five flights beginning in 1993 and ending in 1995. An option, if proposed and exercised, will involve 25 additional middeck locker equivalents and related services be provided on a September 1992 flight.

Deadline for the proposals is April 30. In FY91, Approximately $14 million is available for the CMAM project. The entire project is budgeted for $180 million through 1995.

The CMAM will be managed by the CMAM Project Office in the New Initiatives Office at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.