#Boeing’s Quantum Leap: #Satellites in Record Time, #Boosting National Security and Commercial Connectivity.
In 1963, #Boeing heritage company #Hughes Space and Communications launched into orbit a 78-pound #satellite called #Syncom that could receive signals from Earth and send those signals back down to different spots around the globe. That first communications satellite was built in the same El Segundo, California, facility where the Nash Rambler was built in the 1950s and where Boeing today produces satellites for commercial customers like SES and Viasat, as well as the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). Syncom production was a ground-breaking effort that incorporated cutting edge technology of the day. Building the spacecraft took several years.
Since then, Boeing—which acquired #Hughes in 2000—has been delivering satellites on faster and faster timelines; production is now tallied in months, not years. But earlier this year, when Millennium Space Systems, a Boeing Company, delivered a satellite for U.S. Space Systems Command’s Space Safari Program Office in an astounding eight months, the industry took note.