Alex Omenye
American Space Exploration Technologies Corporation gets US payload contract.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is part of the companies that NASA awarded a contract worth over $100 million.
The rocket launch and satellite operator share the contract for unspecified “commercial payload processing services” with Astrotech Space Operations LLC, unit of Lockheed Martin Corp., the government’s space agency announced Friday in a statement.
The multimillion dollar contract is for payload processing, and it involves preparing a spacecraft to fly on top of a rocket ahead of a flight to space.
The launch would be carried out of Cape Canaveral, Florida, or Vandenberg Space Force Base in California and the contract could run for more than 10 years through February of 2033, NASA said.
SpaceX and Astrotech work involves launching satellites to observe the Earth and using spacecraft to visit deep-space destinations in the Solar System, the agency said.
There has been no comment from SpaceX nor Astrotech in relation to the contract award.
