Nasa has extended an engineering and science support contract for the Johnson Space Center with Jacobs Technology.

The firm will continue to provide engineering operations, analysis, hardware and systems certification for fly-out of the space shuttle programme, the International Space Station.

Similar services will continue for the last shuttle flight to the station, space station assembly completion, commercial orbital transportation services, the European automated transfer vehicle and the Japanese H-2 transfer vehicle.

The extension will also provide for completion of design, development, test and evaluation of equipment for the Orion spacecraft and critical test beds supporting the spacecraft’s development.

The contract extension is valued at about $978m bringing the total contract value to around $2.16bn through January 2013 for an eight-year period.