Boeing officials say the company has picked up work on a new Air Force space effort and additional work under its long-standing contract to build Global Positioning System satellites. The new work involves defining the next-generation communications payload for a polar-orbiting satellite under a $1.5 million Air Force contract. For the GPS program, Boeing will build three more Block IIF satellites under a $138 million option.
The launch last month of Orbital Watch, the new Space Force program to share declassified U.S. government threat intelligence with private sector satellite operators and other commercial space companies, comes amid increasing concern about Chinese and Russian development of anti-satellite weapons.