spacetoday.net: NASA terminates spacesuit contract

Posted: Sat, Aug 16, 2008, 10:19 AM ET (1419 GMT)
NASA announced late Friday that it has terminated a contract it issued two months ago to a company to develop new spacesuits for use on the Constellation program. NASA said that "corrective action is appropriate" in justifying its decision to cancel the contract with Oceaneering International, which won the Constellation Space Suit System contract in June, but did not specify what led to that conclusion beyond a "compliance issue". According to one report, NASA had neglected to request a "cost accounting standards disclosure statement" from Oceaneering. The losing bidder, Exploration Systems & Technology, a joint venture of Hamilton Sundstrand and ILC Dover, had filed a protest of the contract award, but the GAO had not completed its review when NASA decided to terminate the contract. The original contract award was perceived as something of an upset, given the long history Hamilton Sundstrand and ILC Dover had developing spacesuits for NASA.