NASA Awards $2.5 Billion Contract To HP

Hewlett-Packard has been chosen by NASA to help create desktop services and related devices for the space agency's secure collaboration initiative.

HP said the contract, which was awarded to its HP Enterprise Services division, is worth up to $2.5 billion over a four-year base period with two three-year option periods. It is a part of NASA's Agency Consolidated End-User Service (ACES) Program. For it, HP will modernize NASA's computing infrastructure by providing personal computing services and devices to more than 60,000 users.

NASA personnel use IT to support NASA's core business, scientific, research and computational activities, said Michael Sweigart, procurement officer at NASA's Shared Services Center, in a statement. HP will provide, manage, secure and maintain these essential IT services for the agency.

HP will provide Computing Seat, Tier 2/3 Service Desk Support and Collaboration Services to NASA. These will allow NASA to safely share information through a collaborative and secure environment.

The ACES contract will help evolve NASA's IT environment to a centralized, adaptable IT infrastructure to enable economies of scale, agency-wide visibility and improved management and security. HP will build on our deep industry, infrastructure and end-user services expertise to support this significant work for the agency that is pioneering the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research, said Dennis Stolkey, senior vice president and general manager, of the U.S. Public Sector at HP Enterprise Services, in a statement.

NASA has been handing out a few checks recently. Last week, it handed out millions worth in contracts to four developers as part of the second round Commercial Crew Development (CCDev2) effort.

Follow Gabriel Perna on Twitter at @GabrielSPerna