+ 1970 News Releases (7.6 Mb PDF file) - NASA

.ATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
IIIcEMANNED SPACECER.,wj !Bi Wj,..ox,-s
483-5111 MSC 70-66
June 9, 1970
HOUSTON,TEXAS--The NASA Manned Spacecraft Center has selected
Pratt &Whitney Division, United Aircraft Corporation, Hartford,
Connecticut and the Direct Energy Conversion Business Section, General
Electric Corp._ West Lynn, Massachusetts to negotiate parallel contracts
for development of fuel cell technology %o provide electrical power for a
space
shuttle.
The two firms will negotiate cost-plus-fixed-fee contracts to
develop fuel cell technology leading to the design, fabrication_ and
testing of an engineering model fuel cell system. The contracts will
run for 13 months beginning July 1_ 1970 and will be worth approximately
$825 thousand each.
The program is aimed at developing a hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell with
a lifetime goal of five thousand hours, a power output of five thousand
watts and weighing three hundred pounds or less.
Three oxygen-hydrogen fuel cells are used in the Apollo program.
They have a combined weight of about 735 pounds and produce a total of
about 4,200 watts of electrical power.
Pratt & Whitney and General Electric were selected to negotiate
contracts from among three firms responding to a NASA request for proposals.
The development programs will be coordinated closely with the space
shuttle phase B program definition studies being conducted for NASA by
the McDonnell Douglas and North _nerican Rockwell Corporations.
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