Millennium Engineering awarded $340M for Space Vehicles Directorate work

March 4 (UPI) -- Millennium Engineering and Integration Co. received a $340 million contract from the U.S. Air Force contract for space research, the Defense Department announced.

The company, headquartered in Arlington, Va., will provide research, engineering and technical management in support of the Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles Directorate at Kirtland AFB, N.M.

The contract, announced by the Pentagon on Friday, calls for concept development, analysis, development, integration, experimentation, demonstration, and evaluation of space technology.

The Directorate's work is the development and transition of space technologies for more effective and affordable warfighter missions. With over 50 research laboratories and testing structures, its divisions include battlespace environment, integrated experiments and evaluation, spacecraft technology, integration and operations, and contracting.

The 2018 Eagle and Mycroft space missions, a roll-out solar array for the International Space Station and an amplifier doubling the power output of GPS amplifiers, are among the Directorate's recent successes.

The contract runs through April 2026, with $5 million in fiscal 2018 and 2019 research and development funds obligated for initial task orders at the time of the contract's awarding.