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The U.S. Air Force on Wednesday awarded billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX an $83 million contract to launch a GPS satellite, breaking the monopoly that Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) and Boeing Co (BA.N) have held on military space launches for more than a decade. The Global Positioning System satellite will be launched in May 2018 from Florida, Air Force officials said. The fixed-price award is the military's first competitively sourced launch service contract in more than a decade. It ends the exclusive relationship between the military and United Launch Alliance, a partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing. ULA did not compete for the GPS launch contract, citing accounting issues, implications of trade sanctions limiting imports of its rockets' Russian-made engines and, according to a former ULA vice president, SpaceX's cut-rate pricing. |
He says without irony that he wants to retire to Mars
The Model S has now sold 140,000 cars!
So before anyone starts with a nonsense diatribes about how Musk and SpaceX are living off US gov't welfare, realize that SpaceX is actually saving the gov't a shit ton of money here.
I welcome another player in the space launch game. I hope they succeed. I hope they inspire others, and that others succeed. this is the future of anything in the space exploration/supply future.
this is when serious cost savings will kick in ..
Thats what i was going to say, what can they get for $82mm? (I guess I could read the article)
So by any measure SpaceX is saving the gov't a shit ton of money here. And this is BEFORE they start re-using the rockets, which will bring the cost way way down.
And as an added bonuses using rockets 100% manufactured in the USA, as opposed to ULS rockets which were made in Russia.
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