Boeing Co. is designing a smaller, more versatile spacecraft platform intended to appeal to the commercial and military markets, company spokeswoman Diana Ball confirmed.

The new offering, first reported by a financial newspaper, will be based on Boeing’s 702 platform. "The feedback we’d been getting back from customers was that the 702 is more satellite than they need," Ball said Feb. 16. "Now we also have a scalable design — we’re calling it the 702B — that addresses the lower power range some of our customers prefer."

In comparison to the 702’s range of 10 to 16 kilowatts of payload power, the 702B will provide between 2 and 18 kilowatts, Ball said. The new spacecraft will be available in the third quarter, and Boeing likely will use it for several government program bids, she said.