United Launce Alliance (ULA) Statement in Response to SpaceX Lawsuit, ULA
“Defense Department officials have recently stated that cancelling the contract and terminating the block buy – which involves hundreds of suppliers and is enormously complex – would cost billions. Additionally, it could put critical mission schedules at risk that would have impact on operational capabilities and the satellite program costs. ULA is focused on delivering on all of its mission assurance and cost reduction commitments that support its customers.”
SpaceX Announces Court Action to Open Air Force Space Launch Missions to Competition, SpaceX
“SpaceX announced today that they are filing a legal challenge to the U.S. Air Force’s latest Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) contract with United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The long-term contract, which guarantees the purchase of 36 rocket cores from ULA to be used in national security launches, was granted to ULA on a sole-source basis without any competition from other launch providers. SpaceX is seeking the right to compete for some of these same launches.”
– McCain Questions USAF EELV Procurement, earlier post
– SpaceX to Protest and Sue Over EELV Contract, earlier post
That’s an interesting defence, when you think about it. It also potentially turns the spotlight firmly back to the DoD and its processes. If the block buy is literally too complex and costly to stop, even though it’s technically illegal then there is the very real chance that the currently-contracted supply chain has an eternal and unstoppable income from the government, even if they can’t actually supply anything that works.
Whoever allowed things to develop to this state really need to be held to account!
Unfortunately there really, probably is not any one entity to hold account for this issue, and I am sure many of them are not alive today. This nightmare has probably been in the works since the beginning of the skunk-work days, maybe even longer. Add in a group generals and admirals over the years who seem to espouse this idea that changing from cost-plus contracting for military procurement is a risk to national security. I still haven’t received a legitimate argument that cold water that upholds that ridiculous ideology.
These types of situations always remind me of Eisenhower’s farewell speech warning of the damage that the military-industrial complex would do if it continued on in the same manner as it was back then. He even mentioned in a memoir that big contractors with big contracts like this would likely use the excuse that it was impossible to stop because things were “too complex and costly to stop”.
Except that ULA has provided products that work 100% of the time (81/81 successful launches). SpaceX on the other hand has a record of 71% success (10/14 – 3 out of 5 falcon 1s blew up, 1 out of 5 falcon 9s failed to deploy secondary payload, and 4 of 4 Falcon 9 v1.1 were successful)
SpaceX is upset that their low cost launch business plan is causing them to hemorrhage cash after the 14 competitive launches were reduced to 7 due to budget cuts.
Surprise! Government acquisition always has that risk, which ULA, Boeing, LM, and every other knowledgeable defense contractor prices into their contracts. Breaking up the Block Buy is their long shot to remain cashflow positive, but it is just a long shot.
You’re skewing the numbers and the facts to support your point of view.
Falcon 1 was essentially a test and development program. If you want to add in Falcon 1 failures to question Falcon 9’s reliability then you need to look at all the previous Atlas and Delta failures as well.
As for Falcon 9, secondary payloads are just that, secondary. They’re incidental to the primary mission. This is true across the industry. Falcon 9 has a 100% success rate.
I would say that SpaceX is upset because they’re being unfairly locked out of business that should be open to competition. They’re certainly not “Hemorrhaging cash”.
Sticking your head in the sand is usually not good for creating an unbiased point of view…
You’re forgetting the Delta IV heavy failure, as well as two failures of the Delta upper stage when it was initially used on the Delta III.
And did you know that SpaceX didn’t try to get the secondary payload into orbit because NASA insisted that they should not do it. If it had happened on any launch other than Dragon they would have deployed secondary payload too. And how many of ULAs rockets can take the primary load to correct orbit even if one engine fails?
Agree- that defense doesn’t say the contract award was done correctly and fairly, it just says it’s already done and it’s expensive to change so too bad… nanner nanner. LOL
Steel ball bearings and springs are some of the parts those suppliers provide ULA (Lockheed Martin & Boeing) for EELVs. This statement by ULA is essentially telling the American public that no matter what you think of the contract now, cancelling it would cost you even more. Essentially ULA is telling the taxpayer that they got us by the you know whats.
Last time I checked Boeing and Lockheed were commercial companies. ULA disappointing its subcontractors with a back room deal that blew up in their faces is not our problem.
It’s not the US taxpayer’s responsibility to support $billions in waste across hundreds of subcontractors especially when most of the value of that subcontracting is supporting foreign military industrial infrastructure (not just the Russian engines). All I am hearing is that ULA is not confident in winning, actually that they believe it is a foregone conclusion that they will lose if they have to face fair and open competition with SpaceX – sad news for Boeing and Lockheed shareholders. Chop the head off the snake and that’s the end of it. Maybe the handful of American subcontractors affected can either do something economically useful or sue ULA for failure to anticipate the competitive nature of business.