CLEVELAND - NASA has awarded a contract to Zero Gravity Corporation of Las Vegas to manage and operate an aircraft to perform reduced gravity parabolic flights while carrying NASA-operated experiments and personnel.

The parabolic flights will provide the means to replicate the reduced gravity environment of space for various areas of research needed to further NASA's understanding of space travel. These include aeronautical research, fluid physics, combustion, material sciences and life sciences.

Additionally, work done during these flights will assist engineers in developing NASA's Crew Exploration Vehicle, as well as contribute to improved flights for astronauts on the space shuttle and the International Space Station. The aircraft will fly primarily out of NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, and NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.

The contract's one-year base period, valued at $4.7 million, began on Jan. 1. Four one-year options could add just over $5 million per year to the fixed price, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract total. These options could extend the period of performance to a total of five years, for an estimated $25.4 million.

For more information on NASA and its programs, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov