Musk's SpaceX wins Pentagon award for missile tracking satellites
America
By
Reuters
| Oct 06, 2020
Elon Musk’s SpaceX won a Sh 16.1 billion contract to build missile-tracking satellites for the Pentagon, the U.S. Space Development Agency (SDA) said on Monday, in the company’s first government contract to build satellites.
SpaceX, known for its reusable rockets and astronaut capsules, is ramping up satellite production for Starlink, a growing constellation of hundreds of internet-beaming satellites that chief executive Elon Musk hopes will generate enough revenue to help fund SpaceX’s interplanetary goals.
Under the SDA contract, SpaceX will use its Starlink assembly plant in Redmond, Washington, to build four satellites fitted with a wide-angle infrared missile-tracking sensor supplied by a subcontractor, an SDA official said.
Technology company L3 Harris Technologies Inc., formerly Harris Corporation, received Sh 21 billion to build another four satellites. Both companies are expected to deliver the satellites for launch by fall 2022.
The awards are part of the SDA’s first phase to procure satellites to detect and track missiles like intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which can travel long distances and are challenging to track and intercept.
READ MORE
Treasury to cut borrowing, spending on shortfall in revenue collection
State to shut down 25 entities, privatise others in new reforms
Why Kenya must move fast to invest in digital rights security
State, workers' pay tensions cloud function
Why the super-rich are ditching commercial property investments
S Sudan Central Bank Governor Rallies East Africans to Invest in Juba
Co-op Bank lines up billions for women-owned SMEs after German loan deal
Construction players protest state's bid to tax mining sector
Insurance sector players to explore use of AI in deepening uptake
Sugarcane farmers accuse AFA of 'siding with cartels' as prices drop
SpaceX in 2019 received Sh 3 billion from the Air Force to use the fledgeling Starlink satellite network to test encrypted internet services with a number of military planes, though the Air Force has not ordered any Starlink satellites of its own.
- Pay judges in 90 days or face jail, court orders Judiciary registrar
- State to shut down 25 entities, privatise others in new reforms
- Sugarcane farmers accuse AFA of 'siding with cartels' as prices drop
- Forget miraa: Discovery of minerals stirs up Meru locals