7/16/03The Boeing Co. announced Tuesday it would direct all government launches to its land-based rocket while commercial missions would be guided to its sea-based system.

Company officials said their Delta 4 program will focus on getting business from military and NASA missions. Delta 4 is Boeing/s new family of space boosters designed to carry medium and large satellites from both Vandenberg Air Force Base and Cape Canaveral, Fla.

The decision wasn/t a surprise, considering the slowdown in the commercial satellite market.

"If they didn/t have any commercial launches, it/s a little difficult to pull out of a market they didn/t have," said one industry follower.

When the Delta 4 program was developed in the 1990s, the aerospace industry forecast a robust commercial satellite business.

"However, over the last several years demand for commercial launches eroded while global launch capability increased," Boeing said in a written statement.

Firms expected that a strong market from non-government satellite missions would help reduce the cost of launch vehicles for both government and commercial customers.

Boeing officials had announced earlier that they would use the Sea-Launch system for commercial missions. That rocket, actually a Zenit booster built in the former Soviet Union, launches from a platform at sea.

The news comes as Boeing is being investigated by the Department of Justice and Air Force regarding allegations of improprieties during bidding for its Delta 4 program. The firm reportedly had documents from Lockheed Martin Corp. when both bid for the Air Force/s Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program. As a result, sources say, Boeing/s Delta 4 program won the bulk of the missions instead of Lockheed/s Atlas 5.

Boeing also reported pre-tax charges of about ,1.1 billion, or 87 cents per share, when it announced second-quarter results July 23. Company officials credited the bulk of those charges to the Delta 4 program, while the rest stems from its satellite sector.

Staff writer Janene Scully can be reached by e-mail at janscully@pulitzer.net