NASA extends Prisms with CSC

NASA has awarded a $100.6 million contract extension to Computer Sciences Corp. to continue providing information technology services to the space agency's centers and facilities.

CSC won the Program Information Systems Mission Services (Prisms) task order in 1994. The add-on extends its work through April 30, 2003. During the same period, NASA plans to initiate a full and open recompetition of Prisms.

Under the contract, CSC supports NASA computer systems, applications software, telephone systems, audio/visual services and information management systems, including NASA's Incident Response Center and its Automated Data Processing Consolidation Center at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

The extension brings the total value of Prisms to about $1 billion.

NASA previously purchased all six options to continue the contract. A legal provision has allowed it to stick with CSC for another year because of Marshall Center's early role in the rollout of an agencywide integrated financial management system, said Jerry Berg, a spokesman for Marshall.

"To bring in a new contractor would jeopardize the schedule for that plan," he said.