Posted: Fri, Jan 25, 2002, 8:57 AM ET (1357 GMT)
The US Air Force is considering a proposal to provide financial aid to prop up the launch vehicle businesses at Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. According to the report, the Air Force is concerned that a lack of commercial launch vehicle orders could force cutbacks in Boeing's Delta 4 and Lockheed Martin's Atlas 5 programs, threatening their viability for military missions. One proposal being studied at the Pentagon would give both companies hundreds of millions of dollars of additional funding through the latter part of the decade for quality control and engineering enhancements. The Air Force may also shift some military launches from the Delta 4 to the Atlas 5 to give each vehicle roughly the same number of launches. The Air Force supported the development of both vehicles as part of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program, an effort to develop a new generation of less expensive, more reliable launch vehicles that would serve both government and commercial customers.

Related Links:

•  Wall Street Journal article (subscribers only)
•  Reuters article