A strike by Boeing machinists that has grounded the Delta rocket fleet for nearly three months could be edging closer to resolution. Negotiations between the company and union leaders have resulted in a revised contract offer that will be put to a vote on Wednesday.

This Delta 4 rocket is one of three Boeing boosters waiting on launch pads for the strike to end. Photo: Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now

Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers at the Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Air Force Base launch sites, the rocket manufacturing plant in Alabama, the Delta program engineering headquarters in California and other Boeing locations will decide whether to accept the new contract or else remain on strike.

"We are nearing three months on strike," union spokesman Bob Wood said Saturday. "We have a duty to send this to the membership for a vote. It's democracy at its finest. The strikers at Boeing have the final say on whether to keep striking or not."

Workers voted in late October to reject Boeing's offer for a three-year contract, citing the company's plan to cut retiree health care coverage for future workers, among other complaints. Boeing said the contract included pay hikes. The strike began on November 2.

The two sides finally held talks on Friday and Saturday in Birmingham, Alabama. The negotiations yielded a "revised" contract that Wood says has "substantive, not substantial," changes.

"There was some movement on the part of the company in insurance premiums and deductibles, as well as caps on premium costs," said Wood. "Boeing offered the establishment of a committee to find ways to reduce retiree health care costs for future hires."

Accepting the new contract would end the labor dispute that has stopped all Delta rockets from launching, including three standing on their pads in Florida and California.

A Delta 4 at Cape Canaveral has the civilian GOES-N weather satellite already mounted aboard for launch. It was supposed to fly last summer but encountered technical problems that put the mission on hold. The satellite will orbit 22,300 miles above the planet, becoming the first in a new series of U.S. weather observatories with advanced instruments to improve forecasting.

Vandenberg Air Force Base has a Delta 2 vehicle waiting to carry a pair of environmental research satellites into orbit for NASA. That launch had been scheduled for November 7 only to be called off in late October when the strike was looming. NASA's CloudSat will use radar to study clouds and attempt to determine how rain and snow are produced; the joint U.S./French CALIPSO satellite will examine the impacts that clouds and aerosols have in changes to the Earth's climate.

Also at Vandenberg is a larger Delta 4 rocket that is supposed to haul a top-secret U.S. National Reconnaissance Office spy satellite cargo into space.

A Boeing spokesman said last week that the GOES-N launch would be the first to fly, perhaps in early March if the strike ended soon, followed later in the month with the CALIPSO/CloudSat mission. An Air Force Delta 2 launch from the Cape with the next Global Positioning System satellite could go in mid-April, although that rocket hasn't been assembled on the pad yet. The Vandenberg Delta 4 flight would slot in sometime around late April.