Boeing sensationally given $2.5bn NEW government contract - despite leaving two astronauts stuck in space

The US Air Force has awarded a $2.56 billion contract to scandal-plagued aerospace giant Boeing for two prototype aircrafts.

The funds will help develop the new E-7A Wedgetail rapid radar plane, set to be delivered in 2028 and mature to a fleet of 26 about four years later.

The effort will see specific USA mission systems integrated into the aircraft, which is based on the 737-700 airliner. 

While the US military is touting the partnership as 'a significant win for our warfighters,' the contract comes as Boeing's faulty Starliner has left astronauts stranded in space for more than two months.

'This agreement is a significant win for our warfighters, paving the way for ensuring the air force's ability to provide advanced airborne moving target indication in the coming years,' said Andrew Hunter, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics.

'It is also an exemplar of our ability to leverage and support the expertise and investments of our partners and allies to support our common security objectives.'

In its annual report last year, Boeing told shareholders that 37 percent of its 2023 revenues came from its US government contracts, which would include its troubled CST-100 Starliner for NASA as well as foreign military sales to US allies.

The E-7A Wedgetail is expected to see use by Royal Australian Air Force and the UK's Royal Air Force (RAF), in part because Australian forces are already working with similar Boeing 737-derived platforms.

The E-7A Wedgetail is what is known as an airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft.

The Pentagon has billed the souped-up Boeing 737 as a 'future tactical battle management, command and control and moving target indication platform' for its ability to provide eyes on both ground- and air-based threats facing pilots in the battlefield. 

The hope is that these craft will replace the aging fleet of E-3 Sentry airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft, built of older Boeing 707s. 

But Boeing is only playing a partial role in this project: The metal fuselages of its 737's are being cut into E-7As by Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita, Kansas

Then, with the tops of those jets' fuselages removed, reinforced supports will be installed for the mounting of an advanced multirole electronically scanned array (MESA) radar from Northrop Grumman. 

'In partnership with Boeing, we are committed to delivering MESA sensors at a pace that meets the needs of our customers,' Northrop Grumman's vice president for airborne surveillance programs Ed Griebel said, according to Aviation Week. 

'We remain committed to providing multifunction sensors that address and reflect the evolving global battlespace environment,' Griebel said.

Attorneys for the families of the passengers killed in two, fatal Boeing 737 MAX commercial jet crashes have directly linked the firm's lucrative NASA and US defense contracts to what they describe with as 'this sweetheart deal' guilty plea. 

With its guilty plea, Boeing has agreed to pay a $243.6 million fine over two, fatal Boeing 737 MAX passenger jet crashes in 2018 and 2019: tragedies that have heralded waves of congressional hearings and exposés on the company's failings.

The new plea came amid a summer that saw Boeing's critics pointing to low Earth orbit, where the firm's leaky Starliner spacecraft has been docked indefinitely to the International Space Station, leaving two astronauts trapped in space until 2025.

NASA's Office of the Inspector General has called for 'financial penalties' over the debacle, which it attributed to Boeing's 'noncompliance with quality control.' 

Inspection teams had discovered five different leaks within Starliner's propulsion system before the June launch undermining the craft's ability navigate back to Earth.

Nevertheless, Pentagon officials said they found no reason these evolving scandals would impact their existing contracts with the aerospace firm. 

'We will be working in a coordinated fashion,' the Air Force's assistant secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, Andrew Hunter, said this July, 'to understand what implications there might be from the plea deal.'

'But I don't anticipate at this point that it is going to [...] lead to significant disruption of our contracting,' the Air Force procurement official stated.

But Boeing's E-7A Wedgetail, named after the triangular radar array installed near its tail, has already hit cost overruns and delays that have worried some in Congress. 

'At the Air Force's request, we appropriated another $200 million above the president's budget to accelerate this program,' Senator Roger Wicker, a ranking member of the US Senate Armed Services Committee, complained in May 2023.

'It did not get accelerated,' the Mississippi Republican noted, 'and we wonder why, where the $200 million went.'

Budget projections for the E-7A Wedgetail program that year estimated that somewhere north of $7.4 billion would be needed through 2028 to supply the first 10 of an expected 26 total Wedgetails for the Air Force. 

The total cumulative value of this latest contract for the project is $2,560,846,860.

Boeing enjoyed $14.8 billion in Pentagon contracts in 2022, per government reports.

Among the other billions in taxpayer-funded defense spending that Boeing is currently vying for: a $6 billion contract for 1,000 AI-piloted fighter jets, which Boeing dubs the 'ghost bat,' designed for moves too dangerous for manned planes.

Four other defense companies are bidding for that contract: Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Atomics and Anduril Industries. 

But only Boeing's MQ-28 Ghost Bat has been flown publicly.

Outside of the military-industrial complex, lawyers for the victims killed in Boeing's 2018 and 2019 passenger jet disasters have blasted federal investigators for its cozy relationship to the aerospace firm.

One attorney for the families, Paul Cassell, recast the guilty plea and its $243.6 million fine as 'crafty lawyering between Boeing and DOJ [Department of Justice].'

Cassell called for a public trial where true justice could be meted out.

'The only way to assure public confidence in the outcome here is for the court — not the parties — to determine the appropriate sentence,' Cassell said. 

'Perhaps this deal serves the public interest,' the families' attorney continued, 'although in the sections that follow the families argue strenuously to the contrary'

Another lawyer for the deceased passengers' families, Adrian Vuckovich, tied the negotiated plea directly to the government's many ongoing contracts with Boeing.

'To actually charge Boeing and its senior management with the actual crimes committed, including the homicide of 346 passengers, would make any explanation of ongoing business dealings difficult and uncomfortable,' Vuckovich opined.

'Particularly,' he said, 'in an election year.'