Boeing division opens small office in Boulder

BOULDER – Boeing-SVS Inc., a unit of Chicago-based Boeing Co.’s space and communications division, has opened an office at 1113 Spruce St. in Boulder.

The office, headed by Mike Kaplan, director of electro-optics payloads, said a three-person staff will work on concept design studies for a telescope that could detect, if they exist, Earthlike planets orbiting nearby stars. The team also will develop studies for a new generation of space observatories that would be assembled and checked-out by astronauts in space. Prior to coming to Boeing-SVS, Kaplan led future astrophysics programs for NASA.

Albuquerque-based Boeing-SVS chose Boulder because of its close proximity…