Space Force awards SpaceX and ULA seven launches worth more than a billion dollars
The U.S. Space Force (USSF) yesterday awarded multi-launch contracts to both SpaceX and ULA for seven launches beginning in 2027 worth more than a billion dollars.
SpaceX received $714 million for five launches and ULA was awarded $428 million for two launches, USSF said in an Oct. 3 news release.
The awards are part of the Space Force’s National Security Space Launch Program, which it uses to launch services for military space missions. In April, it chose SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin to launch a total of 54 missions scheduled between fiscal 2027 and 2032, with SpaceX responsible for just over half, with 28 launches. Individual missions will be awarded in batches through fiscal 2029.
Though Blue Origin was included in this program and its New Glenn rocket has finally launched once successfully, its not yet been certified to launch military satellites, and to get certified the company is going to have to launch at least one more time. That launch is expected before this month is out. Moreover, it will soon have to compete against more companies, and the Pentagon will be adding Rocket Lab and Stoke Space to its approved list as soon as both successfully launch their respective Neutron and Nova rockets by next year.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The U.S. Space Force (USSF) yesterday awarded multi-launch contracts to both SpaceX and ULA for seven launches beginning in 2027 worth more than a billion dollars.
SpaceX received $714 million for five launches and ULA was awarded $428 million for two launches, USSF said in an Oct. 3 news release.
The awards are part of the Space Force’s National Security Space Launch Program, which it uses to launch services for military space missions. In April, it chose SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin to launch a total of 54 missions scheduled between fiscal 2027 and 2032, with SpaceX responsible for just over half, with 28 launches. Individual missions will be awarded in batches through fiscal 2029.
Though Blue Origin was included in this program and its New Glenn rocket has finally launched once successfully, its not yet been certified to launch military satellites, and to get certified the company is going to have to launch at least one more time. That launch is expected before this month is out. Moreover, it will soon have to compete against more companies, and the Pentagon will be adding Rocket Lab and Stoke Space to its approved list as soon as both successfully launch their respective Neutron and Nova rockets by next year.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Probably just a hit piece by the usual suspects—still disturbing if true
https://www.propublica.org/article/elon-musk-spacex-china-investors-court-testimony
How disturbing this alleged news is would depend entirely upon who the alleged “Chinese” investor(s) is/are. Ethnic Chinese investors from Singapore or Taiwan wouldn’t bother me at all. Neither would even certain people from the PRC. Finding out that Jack Ma, for example, was a SpaceX investor wouldn’t bother me whatsoever. In any event it’s not as though SpaceX investors get to look at the blueprints.
Hmm, the 5 SpaceX flights for $714 million or about $142.8 million each. The ULA launches are $428 million for 2 or $214 million each. I would presume the ULA launches are for Vulcan/Centaur pairs as I think Atlas V is gone. I do hope there are stiff non-performance clauses in the contracts for ULA as well as good insurance. The Vulcan Centaur has precisely 3 launches under its belt. Paying a ~$70 million premium per flight for a platform with three flights vs one with 550 or so successful flights seems a little excessive just to have a second source. Honestly, even the SpaceX price tag seems high. I thought their going rate was ~~100 million a launch on Falcon 9. Of course USSF does tend to have heavier payloads and higher orbits that might require expending the Falcon 9 first stage, thus driving up the price.
Tregonsee314 – 4 of the 5 launches are Falcon Heavy, which likely means Direct to GEO insertion style missions, where they may not be able to recover the side boosters. Core will be lost, probably for sure. Would need both ASDS barges to recover the boosters downrange.
Or maybe they are just really heavy payloads? All classified but who knows, so the pricing is for mostly Falcon Heavy which usually is shown with a $125 million price tag, so not so much of a cost for government oversight.
Tregonsee,
Stephen Clark at Ars Technica noticed the big price differential in the contracts, too:
Link: https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/10/pentagon-contract-figures-show-ulas-vulcan-rocket-is-getting-more-expensive/
I’m not sure exactly why this has happened. But until other (non-SpaceX) U.S. launchers in development (New Glenn, Neutron, Stoke Nova, etc.) get certified and start competing for these contracts, this may just be the price that the Defense Department has to pay for launcher and launch provider redundancy.
I think Vulcan, like Atlas V before it, is going to be a high precision, dependable launch vehicle. For natsec launches, that matters. But yeah, it’s turning out to be excessively expensive, too.
Yeah, the fact that these are almost all Falcon Heavy launches does matter for the price point!
That said, the harsh reality is that SpaceX no longer has any incentive to cut its prices until there’s another credible launch provider on the market that’s able to offer genuine price competition: there’s no point to leaving money on the table. ULA has got itself a cheaper rocket now to replace Atlas V and Delta IV, but it is still not cheap enough to offer such competition. I think we need successful Neutrons and Novas to do that. But neither of them can do these big GSO missions, either, so….
Beck…the Samwise Gamgee of NewSpace.
He needs to lose the Hasselhoff perm.
Next thing you know, we will see a Marjoe Gortner look-alike…