The work, which is being carried out at Orbital’s Composites Centre in Clearfield, Utah will produce the composite frames for the Boeing 787–9 centre and aft fuselages, and will support identical structures on the 787–10 variant currently in development.
Orbital ATK was recently created though the combination of Orbital and the aerospace and defence businesses of ATK. The merger which was announced back in April 2014 was finalised this month.
Joy de Lisser, Vice President and General Manager of Orbital ATK’s Aerospace Structures Division said;
We look forward to delivering these composite structures to Boeing to meet their growing 787 production rates. This work scope adds to our long-term relationship of supporting Boeing with composite structures spanning many dynamic products across the commercial aircraft, military aircraft, launch vehicle and satellite industries.
The company will begin shipping components in the first half of 2015, and will reach full production rates in 2018