Boeing will no longer pursue the $3 billion contract to provide operations and maintenance support at the Air Force’s space launch ranges on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, reported the Washington Business Journal. It was in the company’s best interest to “focus resources in other areas,” said Boeing spokeswoman Ellen Buhr, according to the July 12 WBJ report. The decision comes roughly a year after Boeing announced its intent to pursue the launch test range system integrated support contract, with which the service aims to consolidate its three current contracts for range support services into one. “It’s never an easy decision to have to refocus, especially in a competition like this, where it would have been our entry into the market,” Alma Dayawon, spokeswoman for Boeing’s training systems and services, told the Daily Report July 13. Still pursuing the LISC contract are reportedly Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon, among others.
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…