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Team chosen for
nuclear-powered space probe

Northrop Grumman,
JPL to work together
on orbiter due to visit
Jupiter’s icy moons

By Brian Berger
Space News staff writer
updated 6:26 p.m. ET Sept. 23, 2004

WASHINGTON - Northrop Grumman beat out Boeing and Lockheed Martin to win a $400 million contract to help NASA design the proposed multibillion-dollar Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter mission.

The U.S. space agency hopes to launch the nuclear-powered JIMO around 2015 on an ambitious mission to orbit three of Jupiter's planet sized moons.

Under the contract, which runs through 2008, Northrop Grumman will work with a government team led by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to complete preliminary design of what would be NASA's first nuclear electric propulsion spacecraft.

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"We have assembled an exceptional team of professionals to take us into the next phase of the mission," John Casani, the JIMO project manager at JPL, said Monday in a statement announcing the awards. "To see the mission evolve is rewarding, and I am confident a good team is in place to move us forward."

NASA intends to select the scientific instruments for the mission at a later date through a competitive process.

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