ULA Orders RD-180 Engines to Serve Civil, Commercial Contracts, ULA
“ULA has ordered additional Atlas engines to serve our existing and potential civil and commercial launch customers until a new American-made engine can be developed and certified. While ULA strongly believes now is the right time to move to an American engine solution for the future, it is also critical to ensure a smooth transition to that engine and to preserve healthy competition in the launch industry.”
Rocket security for the Rocket City – thanks to Senator Shelby, Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle, Huntsville Times
“We thank Senator Shelby for his leadership in the Senate, for securing our nation’s defense, ensuring America stays on the technological forefront in space, and for keeping important, valuable jobs in North Alabama.”
– Sen. Shelby: The King Of Political Cronyism and Hypocrisy, earlier post
– Congress Blinks on RD-180s, earlier post
– DoD Denies RD-180 Waiver For ULA, earlier post
– Rep. Rogers Hates Everything Russian – Except Russian Rocket Engines, earlier post
– Earlier RD-180 posts

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member...

15 replies on “ULA Gets A Russian Christmas Gift From Sen. Shelby”

    1. Depends whether the parent corporations want to actually fight for the future of ULA, or just milk the Atlas V as long as they can before paring back to their core competence: bloated defense contracts.

      1. This might move the deadline for Vulcan development a bit, but I don’t see them “milking” Atlas V for long given its higher cost than the currently expendable Falcon 9. With Falcon Heavy and reusable Falcon first/core stages in the works, SpaceX certainly won’t be “milking” the expendable Falcon 9.

  2. Just how many Civil, Commercial contracts does ULA have ( besides Cygnus which is technically also a government contract)?

  4. They spent no time at all thinking this over, did they ? Quick, before the wind flag turns ..

    So, with 20 engines and around 5 million per engine mark-up, someone just made a easy hundred million dollars ?

  6. Maybe this is a Pyrrhic victory. How can ULA win any business? Will not SpaceX underbid them significantly every time?

    1. I think that ULA are banking on non-financial considerations to get business.

      FWIW, Atlas-V has a higher payload limit than Falcon-9, especially to GTO and through escape velocity. So it isn’t as if ULA have nothing to bring to the table!

      1. They’ve got that advantage for another year or so, until the Falcon Heavy starts launching. At that point, their only selling point will be reliability for the more risk-averse customers, plus SpaceX’s packed manifest.

        1. But as SpaceX starts to reuse Falcon 9 first stages (and Falcon Heavy boosters and cores), the pace of launches should pick up for SpaceX. That and once their KSC and Texas launch sites are up and running, that will mean at least four pads on three coasts from which to launch (Vandenberg, Cape Canaveral, KSC, and Texas).

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