US "harvesting" canceled satellite for future uses

By Andrea Shalal-Esa

WASHINGTON, May 11 (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force on Monday said it was working with Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) and Boeing Co (BA.N) to "harvest" for future use any government-owned property or ground stations developed for a canceled satellite communications program.

Gary Payton, deputy undersecretary of the Air Force for space programs, told reporters the Air Force had already spent $2.5 billion during two to three years of initial developmental work on the Transformational Satellite (TSAT) program, and hoped to use some of the technologies developed for TSAT in future programs.

He said the program's original mission -- to provide follow-on protected satellite communications for selected U.S. government communications, including the president's ability to order a nuclear attack -- remained "absolutely critical."

"We're never going to be out of that business. We're not going to back away from that job," the Air Force official said.

Lockheed and Boeing, which have been competing for the TSAT contract, had both been awarded risk reduction contracts to ensure that the technologies involved were mature once the government was ready to award a contract to one winner.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates last month announced the program would be canceled. The program had already been scaled back from its initial ambitious goals.

Now the Air Force plans to buy more Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellites, built by Lockheed, and more Wideband Global SATCOMM (WGS) satellites, built by Boeing.

The Air Force is working hard "to collect what is rightfully the government's so that we can do competent planning for potential future evolutions of other systems," Payton said.