Posted: Sat, Sep 20, 2003, 4:04 PM ET (2004 GMT)
The Air Force will award Boeing a contract for a Delta 4 launch in 2005 despite an existing suspension on contracts with the company, Space News reported this week. The article stated that the Air Force would award Boeing a contract for a mid-2005 launch of a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office from Vandenberg Air Force Base. Boeing has expected to win all four launches from Vandenberg that the Air Force was to award this summer, but in light of a contracting scandal that led to an Air Force suspension of contracts with the launch units of Boeing, Lockheed Martin won three of those contracts, provided it built an Atlas 5 pad at Vandenberg. Lockheed officials said that the company would build such a pad, which is slated to be ready by May 2005. Boeing will get the fourth contract because of an "urgent and compelling" need to begin launch preparations, invoking a clause in the suspension that allows the Air Force to give Boeing contracts under those circumstances.

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