Boeing wins $2 billion satellite contract from Space Force
In what appears to be the first major space contract Boeing has won in awhile, the Space Force yesterday awarded it a $2 billion contract to build two new military communications satellites, part of the War Department’s MUOS constellation.
The Boeing Co., El Segundo, California, has been awarded a maximum $2,002,862,607 fixed-price-incentive-firm-target contract for the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) service life extension Phase II effort. This contract provides for the design, development, build, launch support, and on-orbit test support of two MUOS satellites. Work will be performed in El Segundo, California, and is expected to be completed by Sept. 30, 2035. [emphasis mine]
Boeing won the contract competition over Lockheed Martin, which had built the previous MUOS satellites.
I highlight the fixed-price nature of the contract. Boeing’s space-related division in the past two decades has had trouble dealing with such contracts, its corporate culture having become spoiled with cost-plus contracts, which are essentially blank checks. Its fixed-price Starliner contract is the best example, but the company’s repeated inability to stay under budget or get things done got so bad that by 2020 NASA announced it would no longer entertain any contract bids from the company, a policy that it still follows.
For Boeing, making this fixed-price contract work is literally a make-or-break situation. It needs to beginning producing such contracts on-budget and on-time, or else it will die.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I’m surprised they agreed to a fixed-price contract. I could have sworn that not too many months ago they claimed they’d never do fixed-price again. If they can actually manage it, great. I am not hopeful, but neither am I going to hope they fail.
Satellite buses aren’t like a whole new aircraft from scratch. Bus designs they should be able to knock out…that is where you want a fixed cost contract.
Nothing fixed about Starship–that’s eating bank ;)