Marshall Space Flight Center to present awards to contractors | News

Robert Lightfoot, Director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, will host his annual Center Director's Breakfast Tuesday, August 2nd at the Davidson Center for Space Exploration in Huntsville.

Some 250 community leaders, elected officials and industry partners are expected to attend the event, during which Lightfoot will discuss the Marshall Center's accomplishments and NASA's goals for the future.

Lightfoot also will present the annual Marshall Center Contractor Excellence Awards, which honor prime contractors, subcontractors and suppliers who have made significant, sustained contributions to NASA's and Marshall's mission during the preceding three to five years.

Two awards will be presented. Teledyne Brown Engineering of Huntsville will receive the "Large Business -- Service" award. The company contributes a variety of services to the Marshall Center. In 2010, it notably delivered integrated structure and avionics systems for NASA's Robotic Lander Development Project, now undergoing testing at Marshall to enable robust, automated space exploration missions to moons, asteroids and other airless bodies across the solar system. Alliant Techsystems (ATK) Space Launch Systems of Huntsville will receive the "Large Business -- Product" award. ATK provided the space shuttle's reusable solid rocket motors and booster separation motors, and is responsible for the launch abort system motor for the Orion crew capsule, successfully demonstrated in 2010 during NASA's Pad Abort-1 flight test.

The event will take place tomorrow at 8 a.m. at the Davidson Center for Space Exploration (3D Theater), in Huntsville.