ULA Passes on GPS Launch – SpaceX Wins By Default
Lockheed-Boeing venture says will not bid for US GPS satellite launch, Reuters
“United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co, on Monday said it would not bid for the next U.S. Air Force global positioning system (GPS) satellite launch, effectively ceding the competition to privately held SpaceX. ULA, the monopoly provider of such launches since its creation in 2006, said it was unable to submit a compliant bid because of the way the competition was structured, and because it lacked Russian-built RD-180 engines for its Atlas 5 rocket.”
They could have bid with the Delta IV. Maybe it’s time to sell the Delta IV off to another company.
Stop with the silliness. Delta can not be sold off. It shares too much hardware (upper stage engines, avionics, etc), processes and infrastructure (factory) with Atlas
Your post would have been better without the flaming in the first sentence.
You stop with the silliness. You mean it’s not in their business case to sell it off.
I’m developing an admiration for Mr. Bruno.
There’s something a bit Putin-esque in his willingness to squeeze those who oppose him. As long as he doesn’t start showing up shirtless in pictures wrestling Florida alligators, I’m cool with it.
When you’re trying to turn a company around, as Bruno certainly seems determined to do, isn’t cleaning house of people who stand in the way of that effort to be expected?
Everything I have ever seen or heard of Mr. Bruno leads me to think he is a great CEO.
So if ULA had bid against SpaceX, they would have lost on price.
By not Bidding maybe government will let them have more Russian engines, which is what they want.
Pretty hard to put a payload in space with no rocket engines!
Will sure be nice 5 years from now or less when contracts like this can be fulfilled using reusable boosters.
https://youtu.be/4Ca6x4QbpoM
If ULA bid against SpaceX, maybe they would have won on reliability.
Agree
So why did they pullout????
Since they “lacked Russian-built RD-180 engines for its Atlas 5 rocket”, the bid would need to have been for a Delta IV launch. I don’t know how expensive that would have been, but a quick web search confirms that Delta IV has, in the past, launched GPS satellites.
Probably, for some lingo in the competition having to do with the “class” of mission, reliability as a selection criteria only enters indirectly. The launch provider is either currently certified or not, which is rather black or white, and which carries a recent reliability measure within it, without a distinction for degree over longer time periods.
I would guess that over time some “demonstrated reliability” criteria comes into play more strongly, but if anyone want’s new entrants to shake things up and improve the market for buyers in the long term, it’s a factor that has to be approached over the long term as well.
From the Reuter’s article: “He also said the competition’s ‘Lowest Price Technically
Acceptable’ structure meant officials could not differentiate
between bids on the basis of reliability, schedule certainty,
technical capability and past performance, effectively removing
ULA’s greatest strengths from consideration.”
If the procurement’s definition of “Technically Acceptable” does not include a focus on reliability or schedule, then those factors will not play into the decision. I have not read the procurement documents but it sounds that as long as the rocket was certified (which both Atlas and F9 are) then the only real evaluation criteria is cost. In that scenario SpaceX will win every time. USAF chose to value cost over other apsects, as is their right to. It remains to be seen if they will reconsider this position if SpaceX is unable to meet its commitments.
Of course, if SpaceX does meet its commitments, then competition has worked allowing the best solution to survive.
Yes. This is a game. ULA could have gone in with Delta for example. They could have easily removed any EELV launch capabilities contract (the yearly payment by Air Force and NRO for just being around) from the price structure. Then they would have still lost on price. Perhaps they would have lost money as well.
So yes, I agree. This tactic of not bidding was a ploy by ULA to pressure assorted stakeholders to overcome the ban on more Russian engine purchases for Atlas DoD launches. People in the Air Force love a crisis, and ULA is more than glad to assist.
‘People in the Air Force love a crisis’
Could you expand on that thought a wee bit?
Now that we know ULA isn’t bidding, I suppose SpaceX can bid 200-300 million per launch for these missions.
That is not in SpaceXs long term interest.
Musk is to smart to put to much juice in there.
Is Elon beginning to sound like the dog that caught the mail truck (‘Now, what do I do with it?!!)?
What quote from Elon Musk makes you say that?
I think Patrick means, it’s like your company bids on 10 contracts of various sizes, because you’ll typically win 1 or 2 out of such a bundle. Only, suddenly you win all 10. Drowning in good fortune.
Elon’s a pretty smart guy. He’ll probably figure something out.
‘In an interview with Reuters, Bruno also signaled that ULA would also continue to press Congress for changes in the Russian rocket engine ban, and said he had not decided whether to mount a legal challenge to a potential contract award.’
The plot thickens. I guess that we haven’t heard the last from Mister Bruno.
That would be my guess.
ULA is so pathetic. From ULA:
“ULA wants nothing more than to compete, but unfortunately we are unable to submit a compliant bid for GPS III-X launch services. The (request for proposals) requires ULA to certify that funds from other government contracts will not benefit the GPS III launch mission. ULA does not have the accounting systems in place to make that certification, and therefore cannot submit a compliant proposal.”
In other words, unless they can sneak in the $1 billion/per year bogus subsidy to fake the bid lower, they won’t bid.
When @torybruno first came on Twitter I tweeted him this video
https://youtu.be/ip1WAOLh2rE
And said something like
GO TORY!!!!!
He responded
I suppose that’s me on the snowmobile right?