WICHITA, Kan., July 1 (UPI) -- A new contract between Boeing and the U.S. Air Force has the aircraft company providing engineering support for the United States' venerable B-52 fleet for the next 10 years.
Boeing announced reception of a $750 million, 10-year Engineering Sustainment Program contract that will keep a total of 150 jobs in Wichita, Kan.; Oklahoma City and Shreveport, La.
"The ESP contract will allow Boeing to continue supporting our customer by sustaining, modernizing and upgrading the B-52 to meet the warfighter's needs both today and in the future," Mike Houk, B-52 Fleet Support Program manager for Boeing, said in a release. "Boeing employees understand the B-52 as well as anyone in the world, and we look forward to continuing to modernize this fleet of vital aircraft."
Boeing said the agreement calls for its engineers to support the aircraft software, communications, avionics and electrical upgrades; structural analysis; rewiring; and other tasks as directed by the Air Force.
Houk said, "This contract also allows us to provide 24/7 in-flight emergency support to aircrews around the world -- the pilots can contact Boeing engineers from the cockpit to troubleshoot and solve problems real-time."
All of the Air Force's B-52s were built by Boeing, with the first entering service in 1955. The Air Force has said it intended to use the aircraft until at least 2040, decades after the last delivery in 1962, even as it introduces other bombers to its fleet.
The B-52, still considered the backbone of the Air Force's bomber inventory, is capable of flying at 50,000 feet and can travel more than 8,800 miles without refueling. Most of the maintenance work on the planes is handled at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma.
Boeing also said an industry team it leads won a $15.5 million cost-plus-fixed-fee contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to aid with DARPA's Fast Access Spacecraft Testbed program.
The FAST program's goal is to develop a generation station that could provide 175 kilowatts of power for spacecraft.
"Our team is pleased to partner with DARPA in developing this powerful new technology," said Tom Kessler, FAST program manager, Boeing Advanced Network and Space Systems. "FAST offers significant cost and performance benefits to our commercial, civil and national security customers, including new high-power applications to provide a cost-effective means for spacecraft to travel to the outer solar system."
Team members that worked on the first phase of FAST included Boeing, DR Technologies, Northrop Grumman Astro Aerospace, Texas A&M University, Emcore, Boeing subsidiary Spectrolab Inc. and other companies.
The group designed a system capable of providing more than 130 watts per kilogram on a system that is less than half the weight and one-sixth the size of an existing on-orbit solar power system.
The new contract covers FAST's Phase 2.
Boeing's Integrated Defense Systems unit heads up both the B-52 and DARPA programs.
