Boeing gets last spot on $499M Air Force vehicle research contract

Boeing has become the sixth and last company to receive a position on a potential eight-year, $499 million contract to help the Air Force research new technologies for the development of future air vehicles.

The Defense Department announced the completion of Aerospace Systems Air Platform Technology Research program awards in its daily contracts digest Wednesday. Boeing joins other awardees Aurora Flight Sciences, General Atomics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Textron's AAI Corp. subsidiary.

Participating companies in the ASAPTR program will collaborate with the Air Force on research into how they can develop, demonstrate, integrate and transition new air vehicle technologies and systems to deliver weapons, payloads and cargo.

Research-and-development work by contractors will encompass areas such as configurations, aeromechanics, propulsion, structures, computational fluid dynamics and computational structural mechanics.

All work under ASAPTR will take place at contractors' facilities through Aug. 31, 2025.