Author Topic: SpaceX and ULA win billions in Pentagon rocket contracts, beating out Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman  (Read 370 times)

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Online Elderberry

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CNBC by Michael Sheetz 8/7/2020

SpaceX and ULA win billions in Pentagon rocket contracts, beating out Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman

Key Points

•   The U.S. Air Force on Friday awarded rocket builders United Launch Alliance and Elon Musk’s SpaceX contracts worth billions to launch national security missions.

•   ULA, which won 60% of the launches, and SpaceX, which won the remaining 40%, beat out Northrop Grumman and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.

•   The military has said it expects to spend about $1 billion per year on launches.

The U.S. Air Force on Friday awarded rocket builders United Launch Alliance and SpaceX contracts worth billions to launch national security missions for five years starting in 2022.

The awards represent the second phase of the military’s National Security Space Launch program, which is organized by the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center in Los Angeles, California. Four companies — Elon Musk’s SpaceX, ULA, Northrop Grumman and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin — bid for the contracts, with the military set to spend about $1 billion per year on launches.

The NSSL awards represent nearly three dozen launches, scheduled between 2022 and 2026. ULA won 60% of the launches, and SpaceX won the remaining 40%.

More: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/07/spacex-and-ula-win-2022-pentagon-rocket-launch-contracts.html


Online Elderberry

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News Analysis | With Pentagon award, SpaceX joins the establishment

Space News by Jeff Foust — August 7, 2020

https://spacenews.com/news-analysis-with-pentagon-award-spacex-joins-the-establishment/

Quote
Updated 7:30 p.m. Eastern with Blue Origin comment.

WASHINGTON — Six years ago, SpaceX was the upstart launch company seeking to break United Launch Alliance’s monopoly on national security space launches. Now, it’s part of the establishment.

When the U.S. Air Force announced Aug. 7 that SpaceX and ULA would split the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 2 contracts for launches between 2022 and 2027, it cemented SpaceX’s position in the government launch market, one that it went to court not that long ago to enter.

In 2014, frustrated with the Air Force’s award of a block buy contract to ULA for Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rockets, SpaceX filed a lawsuit in federal court, arguing that some of those launches should be competed. The Air Force countered that SpaceX’s Falcon 9 vehicle was not yet certified and thus could not compete.

“New entrants have to fight every day,” recalled Gwynne Shotwell, president of SpaceX, during a panel discussion at the Satellite 2020 conference in March. “If we’re entering a market where we weren’t before, the folks that are in the existing market are going to be upset and they’re going to make sure you have as difficult a road as you possibly can.”

SpaceX dropped the lawsuit in early 2015 after winning concessions from the Air Force, such as speeding up certification of the Falcon 9 and making more launches available for competition. SpaceX has since won several launch contracts for national security missions, which have included the launch of a GPS 3 satellite June 30.

More at link.