Cosmic Log
The U.S. Air Force today awarded Boeing a $2.9 billion contract for 18 more KC-46A tanker aircraft and associated equipment, bringing the total number of tankers on contract to 52. The report comes as Boeing is preparing to make its first deliveries of the 767-based aircraft, which are being built at the company’s plant in Everett, Wash.
After a months-long competition with the likes of Lockheed Martin, Boeing has won a $805.3 million contract from the Pentagon to build the first four MQ-25A autonomous refueling planes for the Navy.
The MQ-25 Stingray is meant to refuel Navy fighter jets such as the Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet and the Lockheed Martin F-35C Lightning II in midair to extend their range. It will be tasked with delivering about 15,000 pounds of fuel, 500 nautical miles out from an aircraft carrier. That should give fighters an additional 300 to 400 miles of flight range over what they have now.
The drones will launch and land on aircraft carriers, so they’ll have to integrate with the Navy’s catapult launch and recovery systems.
Boeing was in competition for the contract with two teams that were led by Lockheed Martin and General Atomics. Northrop Grumman was invited to submit a bid, but dropped out of the competition last October.
A CNN survey suggests most Americans don’t back the Trump administration’s plans to create a new military branch known as the Space Force. The survey, based on a sampling of 1,002 American adults, showed that 55 percent would rather keep the Air Force in charge of protecting U.S. space assets.
The Trump administration is taking immediate steps to raise the profile of the Defense Department’s space operations, and asking Congress to create the Department of the Space Force as a separate military branch by 2020.
“The time has come to write the next great chapter in the history of our armed forces, to prepare for the next battlefield where America’s best and bravest will be called to deter and defeat a new generation of threats to our people, to our nation,” Vice President Mike Pence said today during a speech at the Pentagon. “The time has come to establish the United States Space Force.”
But the plan doesn’t mean new platoons of space troops will be patrolling the heavens anytime soon. Instead, the four-step plan calls for consolidating and beefing up satellite defense operations that are already being done under the aegis of the U.S. Air Force and other government entities.
Hey, hey, hey … it’s Fat Albert, in the skies over Seattle: We’re not talking about the jumbo-sized character created by comedian Bill Cosby back in the day, but the C-130T transport plane that’s back in its place among the Navy’s Blue Angels for Seafair Weekend’s Boeing Air Show.
Fat Albert may not be as sleek as the six F/A-18 Hornets that will be executing fancy aerobatic moves over Lake Washington this weekend. But as far as Marine Maj. Mark Montgomery is concerned, that just means there’s more to love.
“These planes are kind of like a pickup truck,” said Montgomery, who pilots Fat Albert as it travels from air show to air show. “They do everything, and they’re very reliable.”
Second-quarter financial results that show higher revenue and earnings per share would typically please investors, but not for Boeing.
Instead, Boeing’s shares declined by as much as 3 percent after the results were announced. The price recovered to close at $355.92, representing a 0.6 percent loss on a trading day that was generally positive.
Investors were “rattled” by a $426 million charge against revenue due to cost overruns in Boeing’s KC-46 tanker program for the Air Force, Leeham News’ Dan Catchpole wrote. That assessment was seconded by other analysts.
The White House has confirmed that Boeing won a firm, fixed-price contract from the U.S. Air Force to deliver two Air Force One presidential jets for $3.9 billion, more than a year and a half after a purported price tag of $4 billion became a sore point for then-President-Elect Donald Trump.
And Trump says these will be jets of a different color.
In today’s statement, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the contract was formally awarded on July 17. The statement also claimed that the deal represented a savings of more than $1.4 billion when compared with an initial proposal for a $5.3 billion cost-plus contract.
“President Donald J. Trump has emphasized the need to minimize the cost of replacing the two existing Air Force One aircraft,” the statement read. “Yesterday’s action meets that objective and reflects the president’s commitment to our military and to protecting taxpayer dollars.”
In reality, the price for the Air Force One replacement project has been squishy.
A rocket engine built from spare space shuttle parts — and the team behind the engine — passed a grueling 10-day, 10-firing test that sets the stage for Boeing’s Phantom Express military space plane.
“We scored a perfect 10 last week,” Jeff Haynes, Aerojet Rocketdyne’s program manager for the AR-22 engine, told reporters today during a teleconference.
The hydrogen-fueled AR-22 is largely based on the RS-25 engine that was used on the space shuttle and will be used on NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System. “We’ve upgraded the ‘brain’ for this derivative mission,” using an advanced controller, Haynes said.
Aerojet, Boeing and the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, set up the 240-hour test between June 26 and July 6 to see whether the AR-22 could be turned around rapidly enough for a 100-second, full-throttle firing every day. The bottom line? It can.
The U.S. Air Force has awarded a $130 million firm-fixed-price contract to SpaceX for the launch of its classified AFSPC-52 satellite on a Falcon Heavy rocket.
It’s the first national security contract won for SpaceX’s heavy-lift rocket, which had its first test flight in February. AFSPC-52 is tue to lift off in 2020 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
The launch will support the Air Force Space Command’s “mission of delivering resilient and affordable space capabilities to our nation while maintaining assured access to space,” Lt. Gen. John Thompson, Air Force program executive officer for space and commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center, said today in a news release.
In an emailed statement, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said her company was “honored by the Air Force’s selection of Falcon Heavy to launch the competitively awarded AFSPC-52 mission.”
President Donald Trump today directed the Department of Defense to create a Space Force as the sixth branch of the U.S. military, alongside the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard.
“We are going to have the Air Force and we are going to have the Space Force, separate but equal,” Trump said at a White House meeting of the National Space Council. “It is going to be something so important.”
He called on Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to carry out the assignment — and Dunford, a member of the council, accepted the job on the spot.