USAF increases launch payments

Is for this launch services exclusive of the booster cost?
$135 million seems a bit cheap for Delta IV Heavy.


http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...lines-business

Air Force to Pay Boeing, Lockheed More
From Bloomberg News
February 26, 2004
[EXCERPT]

Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. will be paid 50% more to
send U.S. military satellites into space to compensate for the
collapse of commercial demand that threatens their launch
businesses, an Air Force official said Wednesday.

Payments will increase to as much as $135 million per launch from
$91 million, based on a preliminary estimate, because the service
wants to ensure the companies stay in the military program, said
Richard McKinney, the Air Force's deputy director of space
acquisition.

"We are going to pay more, but the companies are not going to get
rich off of this," McKinney said. "They are going to be covering
their costs."

The Air Force plans to spend $4 billion on launch services through
2009 using systems developed by Boeing and Lockheed, McKinney said.
The two companies are relying more on military contracts after the
commercial market shrank by almost two-thirds because growth in
communication satellite service never materialized after the
bankruptcy of companies such as satellite telephone company
GlobalStar.

"Allen Thomson" wrote in message
om...
Is for this launch services exclusive of the booster cost?
$135 million seems a bit cheap for Delta IV Heavy.



http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...story?coll=la-
headlines-business


Batch cost?


--
Alan Erskine
We can get people to the Moon in five years,
not the fifteen GWB proposes.
Give NASA a real challenge

(Allen Thomson) wrote in message . com...
Is for this launch services exclusive of the booster cost?
$135 million seems a bit cheap for Delta IV Heavy.


I think this is an estimated average cost per EELV launch,
based on the $4 billion total program budget through 2009
divided by someone's estimate of the total number of EELV
launches of all types that might occur during that time.
It works out to an average of about 5 launches per year,
by my figuring. It is cheap compared to Titan IV ($30
billion or so for 39 or so launches).

- Ed Kyle

In article ,
Allen Thomson wrote:
Is for this launch services exclusive of the booster cost?
$135 million seems a bit cheap for Delta IV Heavy.

No, that's the new price for Atlas V or Delta IV Medium, not Heavy.
Remember that almost all US military payloads will fly on the Medium
configurations. Out of several dozen contracted EELV launches, only
two -- if I recall correctly -- are Heavies.
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