OREANDA-NEWS. Boeing [NYSE: BA] will further strengthen Inmarsat’s Global Xpress satellite network under an exercised option to build a fourth Inmarsat-5 spacecraft. Global Xpress will provide Inmarsat’s government and commercial customers with mobile broadband connectivity on land, at sea and in the air. 

“Receiving this option to our initial three-satellite agreement with Inmarsat positions Boeing as the key manufacturer of this vital communications network,” said Craig Cooning, vice president and general manager of Boeing Space & Intelligence Systems. “We appreciate this vote of confidence and will continue to live up to it as we look forward to the first satellite’s launch later this year.”

Scheduled to be delivered in 2016, the fourth satellite will be based on the Boeing 702 High Power platform. Boeing and Inmarsat signed the original Inmarsat-5 agreement in 2010.