The Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles AFB, Calif., has issued a final request for proposals for the Transformational Satellite Communications System space segment. The contract could be worth up to $15 billion. Teams led by Boeing and Lockheed Martin have been vying for TSAT, both successfully completing system design reviews earlier this year. The Air Force expects to launch the first TSAT spacecraft in 2016. Congress withheld some TSAT funding last year, but they seem inclined this year to support the Administration request.
The Air Force awarded a $13.08 billion contract to the Sierra Nevada Corporation on April 26 for its Survivable Airborne Operations Center aircraft, the successor to the service’s E-4B “Doomsday” plane. Like the E-4B, officially called the National Airborne Operations Center, the SAOC will be meant to withstand a nuclear attack and keep…