Air Force orders 15 more KC-46A Pegasus tankers under $2.3 billion contract

The U.S. Air Force has awarded Boeing a $2.3 billion contract for the ninth production lot of 15 KC-46A Pegasus tanker aircraft, expanding its fleet of multi-mission aerial refuelers. To date, 128 KC-46A Pegasus tankers are on contract with the U.S. Air Force, with 68 delivered and operationally deployed worldwide.

The KC-46A Pegasus delivers fuel to airborne aircraft and can transport cargo, personnel, and aeromedical missions. Last year, the U.S. Air Force Air Mobility Command approved the KC-46A for global operations including combat deployment.

The Pegasus continues to demonstrate its agile combat employment capabilities, recently completing a 42-hour endurance flight supporting a U.S. Air Force Bomber Task Force mission in the Indo-Pacific region.

During 2022, KC-46A aircraft operated in a series of U.S. Air Force global employment exercises in the European theater, Indo-Pacific region, and the Middle East.

Boeing builds KC-46A aircraft on the 767 production line in Everett, Wash., supported by a supplier network of about 37,000 workers employed by more than 650 businesses throughout more than 40 U.S. states.

Boeing is on contract for 138 KC-46A Pegasus tankers globally. Boeing has delivered two of six KC-46A tankers to the Japan Air Self-Defense Force and is on contract for four KC-46A tankers for the Israel Air Force. The expanding global fleet creates commonality and interoperability efficiencies and mission-readiness advantages for the U.S. Air Force and its allies.

NASA solar satellite will ride air-launched rocket into space

The launch of NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) mission is scheduled for 10:27 p.m. EDT Thursday over the Pacific Ocean.

IRIS is a NASA Small Explorer Mission designed to observe how solar material moves, gathers energy and heats up as it travels through a little-understood region in the sun's lower atmosphere. This interface region between the sun's photosphere and corona powers its dynamic million-degree atmosphere and drives the solar wind.

IRIS will be launched aboard a Pegasus XL rocket that is dropped from a L-1011 aircraft in mid-flight. The drop of the air-launched Pegasus will occur over the Pacific Ocean at an altitude of 39,000 feet, about 100 miles northwest of Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. The L-1011 will takeoff from Vandenberg.

Because of a significant power outage at Vandenberg earlier this week, certain Western Range facilities were not be ready to support the original Wednesday launch date. A Launch Readiness Review meeting for the IRIS mission on Wednesday concluded that all Pegasus and satellite systems are ready for flight.

“The Western Range has been successful in restoring power to the range systems,” NASA said in a IRIS Status Update. “The range does not anticipate any issues in finishing the activation and at this time, the work is going smoothly.”

The launch team will begin preparing the L-1011 for departure at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday. Departure is planned to occur at 9:27 p.m. and the drop of the Pegasus XL is targeted for 10:27 p.m.

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