Elon Musk’s SpaceX won a $149 million (£114.8 million) contract to make missile-tracking satellites for the Pentagon, the U.S. House Development Agency (SDA) claimed, in the company’s initially govt agreement to build satellites.
SpaceX, recognised for its reusable rockets and astronaut capsules, is ramping up satellite output for Starlink, a escalating constellation of hundreds of internet-beaming satellites that chief government Elon Musk hopes will produce adequate income to assist fund SpaceX’s interplanetary aims.
Under the SDA contract, SpaceX will use its Starlink assembly plant in Redmond, Washington, to build 4 satellites equipped with a broad-angle infrared missile-monitoring sensor equipped by a subcontractor, an SDA official reported.
Technology firm L3 Harris Systems Inc., formerly Harris Corporation, obtained $193 million to establish a further four satellites. Each corporations are predicted to supply the satellites for start by slide 2022.
The awards are portion of the SDA’s 1st period to procure satellites to detect and observe missiles like intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which can vacation long distances and are demanding to track and intercept.
SpaceX in 2019 received $28 million from the Air Force to use the fledgling Starlink satellite network to take a look at encrypted internet providers with a amount of navy planes, although the Air Power has not purchased any Starlink satellites of its personal.
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