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- SpaceX won a $ 149 million contract to make missile-tracking satellites for the US Department of Defense.
- Elon Musk’s space exploration company will build four satellites under the Space Development Agency (SDA) contract.
- All four satellites would be equipped with a wide-angle infrared missile tracking sensor supplied by a subcontractor, an SDA official said.
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Elon Musk’s SpaceX has landed a $ 149 million contract to build missile-tracking satellites for the Pentagon.
SpaceX would build four satellites at its assembly plant in Redmond, Washington, the US Space Development Agency (SDA) said on Monday, according to Reuters. The plant is where SpaceX builds satellites for Starlink, a constellation of satellites designed to broadcast the Internet around the world.
This is SpaceX’s first government contract to build satellites.
All four satellites would be equipped with a wide-angle infrared missile tracking sensor supplied by a subcontractor, an SDA official said.
The award is the SDA’s first step in acquiring satellites that can track intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are difficult to intercept.
American technology company L3Harris Technologies also received $ 193 million to build another four satellites for the SDA. Both SpaceX and L3Harris Technologies are expected to have the satellites ready for launch in 2022.
This isn’t the first contract SpaceX has won with the Pentagon: In August it won part of a $ 1 billion deal with the Defense Department to launch new rockets for the Space Force. The SDA will become part of the Space Force in October 2022.
The news comes after Bank of America said on Sept. 28 that the space economy would likely grow by $ 1 trillion in the next decade as it predicted a boom in satellite equipment and new areas of the space market, such as tourism. space.
