Boeing has secured a US$1.8bn deal to continue work on the International Space Station, helping to lift the group as its satellite unit is downsized following the US Ex-Im Bank’s collapse.
Boeing has secured a US$1.8bn deal to continue work on the International Space Station, helping to lift the group as its satellite unit is downsized following the US Ex-Im Bank’s collapse.
The contract from US space agency NASA ensures the ISS’s prime contractor can continue providing support services, resources and staff to the programme until 30 September 2020.
It also means Boeing and its 16 international partners can look into the feasibility of extending the life of the station’s main structure until the end of 2028, although the US and Russia have only authorised its use until 2020.
The ISS has been continually occupied since 2 November 2000 and, as well as facilitating a wide variety of space-based experiments, is also used by commercial ventures such as Nanoracks to launch smallsats.
Boeing’s Defense, Space & Security unit is a US$31bn business and employs more than 53,000 people across the world. The group said it will cut the workforce in its satellite segment by several hundred this year, because of the loss of export credit agency support from Ex-Im and the decline in US government spending.
A spokesperson said some of these employees will be able to transfer to different departments.
Ex-Im, which authorised US$7.4bn in long-term loan guarantees to Boeing in fiscal 2014 – including about US$710.8m for its satellite division – lost its mandate in July 2015 amid political criticism over its support for ‘big business’.
Soon after, Hong Kong’s ABS officially terminated a contract with Boeing to build its next satellite. ABS is understood to be talking to other manufacturers that have export credit support to build ABS-8, while continuing to look for alternative financing with Boeing.
US satellite maker Orbital ATK recently blamed Ex-Im’s absence for losing a competition to build a satellite for Azerbaijan. SSL, which can use Export Development Canada financing because its owner is Canadian, won the contract to construct Azerspace-2 in September.
US backs ULA
More good news for Boeing yesterday came from its launch services joint venture United Launch Alliance, which it shares with Lockheed Martin and was subject to a US$2bn bid from engine maker Aerojet Rocketdyne last month.
Not long after Boeing dismissed that offer, the US government awarded ULA a US$882m contract for operations in fiscal 2016 under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle programme.
Californian newcomer SpaceX was certified earlier this year to compete for these launches, and some industry spectators had suggested that ULA’s broken monopoly on military launches could have pushed its owners towards a sale.
ULA is also under pressure to stop using the Russian-built RD-180 engines that power its Atlas V rockets, and employ a domestic alternative like the one it is developing with Blue Origin.
Its transition was reportedly made easier earlier this week when the US government was cited allowing ULA to use nine RD-180s in fiscal 2016, rather than an original budget that called for just five.
