EADS North America officials expressed disappointment on Thursday after the Air Force chose Boeing’s 767-based tanker aircraft over their own A330-based KC-45 tanker to replace the service’s oldest KC-135s. “This is certainly a disappointing turn of events, and we look forward to discussing with the Air Force how it arrived at this conclusion,” said EADS North America Chairman Ralph Crosby in a release. He did not indicate whether the company would challenge the Air Force’s decision. “With a program of such complexity, our review of today’s decision will take some time. There are more than 48,000 Americans who are eager to build the KC-45 here in the US, and we owe it to them to conduct a thorough analysis,” stated Crosby. The Air Force is expected to provide EADS officials with a briefing sometime in the next week or so to explain why service officials deemed Boeing’s bid to be better.
The Space Development Agency wants to launch hundreds of satellites into low-Earth orbit over the next few years—and thanks to a new contract, it now has a way to get rid of some when their service life is over.
