The Air Force awarded Boeing a $2 billion contract to continue support for the C-17 transport fleet through Fiscal 2017, announced the company. Since 1998, Boeing has managed C-17 fleet services and support under a performance-based logistics initiative called the Globemaster III Integrated Sustainment Program, or GISP. The Pentagon recently recognized the Air Force-Boeing GISP team with the 2012 Secretary of Defense system-level PBL award. “This contract award and the recognition from the Secretary of Defense are testaments to the long-standing partnership between the US Air Force and Boeing,” said Gus Urzua, Boeing’s C-17 support program manager, in the company’s Oct. 10 release. Boeing’s GISP logistics network has grown from supporting 42 jets in 1998 to the 246 in the Air Force and foreign customers’ inventories today, according to the release. “This integrated logistics approach . . . has allowed Boeing to apply innovative spares forecasting and modeling tools to maximize aircraft availability while lowering costs,” states the release.
The Space Force is looking for industry feedback on its plans to create a new “Mission Development Zone” at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., to support launch providers with space for additional payload processing capacity, test and assembly facilities, and potentially rocket and spacecraft manufacturing infrastructure.