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LONDON: Elon Musk’s SpaceX won a $ 149 million contract to build missile-tracking satellites for the Pentagon, the US Space Development Agency (SDA) said on Monday (October 5), in the first government contract company to build satellites.
SpaceX, known for its reusable rockets and astronaut capsules, is ramping up production of satellites for Starlink, a growing constellation of hundreds of Internet-streaming satellites that CEO Elon Musk hopes will generate enough revenue to help fund the interplanetary targets of SpaceX.
Under the SDA contract, SpaceX will use its Starlink assembly plant in Redmond, Washington, to build four satellites equipped 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 $ 193 million to build four more satellites. Both companies are expected to deliver the satellites for launch in the fall of 2022.
The awards are part of the first phase of the SDA to acquire satellites to detect and track missiles such as intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which can travel long distances and are difficult to track and intercept.
SpaceX in 2019 received $ 28 million from the Air Force to use the fledgling Starlink satellite network to test encrypted internet services with various military aircraft, although the Air Force has not ordered any Starlink satellites of its own.
