Lockheed Martin-built GPS III satellite launches into orbit
Lockheed Martin (LMT) announced the eighth GPS III space vehicle, designed and built by the company, successfully launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, at 1:37 p.m. EDT. GPS III SV08 executed an accelerated launch call-up in just over three months. The company stated these GPS III satellites provide accurate and resilient positioning, navigation, and timing capabilities for civilian and military users. GPS III SV08 is now under operational control at Lockheed Martin's Denver Launch & Checkout Operations Center.
Confident Investing Starts Here:
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Why Did The U.S. Air Force Cancel The F-22 Raptor?
It is the absolute apex of air-to-air combat. It rules the skies like a bird of prey, from which it takes its name. It's one of the stealthiest fighter jets in the world. The Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor is the pinnacle of what air dominance can be. So ... it was canceled. In 2009, the U.S. Department of Defense decided to end production of the fighter after only 186 planes were produced, significantly less than the original order of 750. What happened? Airpower is supposed to be one of the pillars of America's military strength, so why take its best piece off the board? The answer comes down to the fact that the nature of America's threats change and evolve over time, meaning that an asset that seemed critical in one era seems less so in another. Plus, put simply, the F-22 is wildly expensive, so if it's not an absolute must-have, the cost-benefit analysis just doesn't shake out. Read more: These Are The Worst American Cars Ever Made The F-22 was a revelation when it first flew in 1997. With a top speed of an incredible Mach 2.25 (1,726 miles per hour), supercruise capability (meaning it could fly for extended periods above the speed of sound), and a coat of radar-absorbent material, it was more advanced than any other fighter in the world at the time. It was a spaceship in a world full of paper planes. Ironically enough, that was part of its problem. Because Russia and China had nothing comparable in the first decade of the 21st century, the F-22 almost seemed like overkill. At a massive per-unit cost of $150 million, did America really need something that far beyond any of its competitors? For that matter, America's main adversaries at the time had no airpower at all. With the U.S. embroiled in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq against low-tech insurgent forces, a high-cost air-dominance fighter just didn't fit the country's needs at the time. Since even the Pentagon doesn't have infinite money (though it sure seems like it sometimes), it had to make some tough choices over where to put resources. For the budget-draining War on Terror, the F-22 just didn't have an argument to make. Not helping matters was the fact that Congress restricted use of the F-22 to just the U.S. Air Force. Translation: There would be no sales to foreign allies, which cut off a major revenue stream that could have offset its costs. Of course, since the end of production in 2009, a lot has changed. Russia and particularly China have upped their military capabilities, including in the air. With the benefit of hindsight, should the U.S. have kept the F-22 rolling off the assembly line? Not necessarily. For one thing, the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is an even newer fighter jet (though it has problems of its own). While slower and less stealthy than the F-22, it has vastly more advanced sensor capabilities. Not only can it gather a huge amount of information about the battlespace, its true party trick is its ability to disseminate that information to other F-35s and to headquarters. Meanwhile, the Air Force has also moved forward by looking backward. The decades-old F-15 airframe has gotten a major update in the form of the F-15EX. For one thing, it's much cheaper than the F-22 (its unit cost is only $94 million), which is appealing as the Pentagon looks to cut overspending. More importantly, the F-15EX can bring a whopping 12 air-to-air missiles to the fray, compared to the F-22's measly eight. The F-15EX was also designed to carry the newest and most advanced ordnance in the Air Force's arsenal, hypersonic missiles. Given all that, you could argue that the F-22 has lost its crown as the best air dominance fighter ... to a much older, and cheaper, plane. Want more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox... Read the original article on Jalopnik.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
At the Worst Possible Moment for Boeing, Airbus' Space Business Is Booming
Air Force brass criticized United Launch Alliance's launch cadence in recent Congressional testimony. Airbus is cutting costs and growing revenue rapidly at its space business. United Launch Alliance is a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and competes with Airbus and SpaceX. 10 stocks we like better than Airbus SE › "The ULA Vulcan program has performed unsatisfactorily this past year." That was the headline from a House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Strategic Forces hearing on United Launch Alliance's (ULA) performance in space launch last week. As Ars Technica reports, Major General Stephen G. Purdy, acting assistant secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration, took ULA, a joint venture between Boeing (NYSE: BA) and Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT), to task for causing "delays to the launch of four national security missions." The space company has launched its new Vulcan rocket twice and finally won certification to fly national security missions in March after the Space Force generously overlooked the fact that, during the rocket's October 2024 certification flight, one of its engine nozzles fell off. Yet despite Space Force doing this favor, ULA has failed to get Vulcan ready to launch even once since receiving certification two months ago. Granted, I personally expect ULA to get its problems fixed and resume Vulcan flights shortly. (With Atlas V due for imminent retirement, it kind of has to!) But ULA had better get a move on. Because over on the other side of the ocean, one of ULA's biggest competitors, aerospace and space giant Airbus (OTC: EADSY), is already starting to up its game in space. Airbus' struggles in space are well-known. The company's new Ariane 6 rocket took nearly a decade to develop. By the time it was ready for flight, it ended up costing far more than planned for each launch. Growing pains are far from unknown in the space business, however, and it looks like the European aerospace company is finally finding its footing in space. Revenue at the company's space division, part of Airbus Defense and Space (ADS), fell 18% from 2021 to 2023 before bouncing back 10% in 2024. As 2025 gets underway, it seems to be gaining momentum. According to a new report from Payload Space, space revenue at ADS grew 28% in the first quarter of 2025. Assuming this is correct, it would mean Airbus' space business is growing more than twice as fast as ADS generally, where revenue grew only 11% in Q1. Profitability is likely to improve as well after the company took $2 billion in charges over the past two years and laid off 2,500 workers to reduce its operating costs. Contract wins are rolling in: $157 million to build two synthetic aperture radar defense satellites for Britain; $2.5 billion more to build a pair of large communications satellites for the German military; and a big contract with Eutelsat to build 100 satellites for that company's OneWeb broadband internet satellite constellation. On top of all this, Airbus CEO Guillaume M.J.D Faury made a cryptic comment in the company's post-earnings conference call last month: "We continue ... looking at different scenarios to create scale in the European space business." Payload and others believe this could be a reference to an Airbus plan to merge its satellite business with those of fellow European defense companies Thales and Leonardo to create a European "champion" that could compete with SpaceX and Starlink. Just because Airbus is gunning primarily for SpaceX, though, doesn't mean ULA should feel safe. In rockets, Airbus CEO Faury said it's his "priority" now to "ramp up" Ariane 6 launches at the same time as ULA's own Vulcan rocket program seems stalled. In at least one regard, this would appear to put Airbus in a head-to-head competition with ULA. Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), after all, has awarded contracts to both companies to assist it in launching its Project Kuiper internet satellites into orbit. Time is of the essence in that effort, with a July 30, 2026, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) deadline looming. Whichever space company ramps its rocket launch cadence first may capture a larger share of the Amazon work. Even bigger picture, ULA CEO Tory Bruno has made it a primary objective to diversify ULA's revenue base by having Vulcan split its launches roughly 50-50 between U.S. government and commercial missions. Historically, ULA has been almost exclusively a U.S. government launcher, but this diversification initiative puts ULA in direct competition with Airbus -- at the same time as ULA is already competing with SpaceX, the 800-lb. gorilla in commercial space launches. All things considered, it's a bad time for ULA to be making its current biggest customer, Space Force, mad at it. Investors looking to avoid further Boeing drama might want to take a look at Airbus stock instead. At 29 times trailing earnings, I won't argue Airbus stock is "cheap," necessarily. But with analysts forecasting 24% long-term annual earnings growth and space revenues already growing faster than that, Airbus stock just might be cheap enough to buy as an alternative to Boeing stock. Before you buy stock in Airbus SE, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Airbus SE wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $638,985!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $853,108!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 978% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 171% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of May 19, 2025 John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon. The Motley Fool recommends Lockheed Martin. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. At the Worst Possible Moment for Boeing, Airbus' Space Business Is Booming was originally published by The Motley Fool Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
SpaceX launches GPS satellite for Space Force after rains, storms sweep past Cape Canaveral
Dodging raindrops, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket bolted off the pad on a Space Force mission Friday, May 30, shortly after a wave of thunderstorms and showers soaked Cape Canaveral and surrounding areas. The rocket deployed a GPS III satellite into medium-Earth orbit after the 1:37 p.m. liftoff from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station — where a special marine warning had advised boaters of steep waves, gusty winds and possible hail offshore. During the SpaceX GPS III-7 launch webcast, Zachary Luppen, an avionics supply chain engineer, said the next-generation satellite will improve resistance to jamming and cyberattacks, boost military signal strength and add signals for civilian applications. Cape Canaveral: Is there a launch today? Upcoming SpaceX, Axiom, ULA rocket launch schedule at Cape Canaveral "Billions of devices and systems around the world rely on the U.S. Space Force-provided GPS signals. Not only is it critical to national security technologies, but everything from navigation on smart phones and in cars, boats and aircraft to disaster response, transportation systems, Federal Aviation Administration operations and even ATMs and banking transactions. All of these depend on GPS," Luppen told launch viewers. "GPS III is the next generation of satellites required to maintain the resiliency of the GPS constellation and improve services to meet user demand," he said. On May 28, Department of Defense officials announced Lockheed Martin received a $510 million Space Force contract modification to design and build two future GPS III satellites. Work will be performed in Littleton, Colorado, with a November 2031 projected completion date. Prior to liftoff, odds of inclement weather remained a 50-50 coin flip past the point when SpaceX crews started fueling the Falcon 9 roughly 35 minutes before launch. Thunderstorms had lit up National Weather Service radar screens in angry-looking red along the northern portion of the Cape about 1½ hours before launch, and widespread rain fell across Launch Complex 40. Meteorologists issued a special marine warning for a north-south swath roughly ranging from Scottsmoor through Titusville to the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. Winds topping 34 knots, steep waves and pea-sized hail were possible within this warning zone, which swept offshore by 1:15 p.m. The Space Force mission marked the Falcon 9 first-stage booster's fourth flight, SpaceX reported. The booster — which previously launched CRS-32, NROL-69 and one Starlink mission — landed on the SpaceX drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean after stage separation. SpaceX's Falcon 9 launch clocked in as the 46th orbital rocket launch thus far this year from KSC and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Next on the Eastern Range schedule, SpaceX will launch a Falcon 9 carrying Starlink broadband satellites during an early morning mission Monday, June 2, an FAA operations plan advisory indicates. Launch window: 12:57 a.m. to 5:28 a.m. That rocket will also lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. For the latest news and launch schedule from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center, visit Another easy way: Click here to sign up for our weekly Space newsletter. Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at Rneale@ Twitter/X: @RickNeale1 Space is important to us and that's why we're working to bring you top coverage of the industry and Florida launches. Journalism like this takes time and resources. Please support it with a subscription here. This article originally appeared on Florida Today: SpaceX launches GPS III Space Force satellite to update constellation
