Air Force print news : officials announce EELV contract award

Defense AT&L, March-April, 2004

WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- Air Force officials announced Dec. 10 a contract award to Lockheed Martin International Launch Services for the purchase of one Atlas V Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV). The vehicle will launch a National Reconnaissance Office payload from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., in 2006.

This was a sole-source contract award to Lockheed Martin, officials said. The Boeing Company was ineligible to compete. Three Boeing integrated defense business units are currently under suspension from competing for government launch contracts.

"This (EELV) will launch a critical national security space capability that will provide information this nation's leaders and warfighters so critically need," said Peter B. Teets. He is the undersecretary of the Air Force and the National Reconnaissance Office director.

The Lockheed Martin Atlas V and Boeing Delta IV are the two families of EELVs developed with the Air Force to modernize and reduce the cost of the nation's space-lift operations while providing the United States with assured access to space, officials said.