ULA closing facility in Texas that makes parts for the retiring Atlas-5 rocket
ULA has announced that it is shutting down its facility in Harlingen, Texas, that makes parts for the company’s soon-to-be retired Atlas-5 rocket.
The facility will shut down at the end of this year, with a loss of about 100 jobs.
This closure is actually a very positive sign for ULA. It indicates that it is streamlining its operations. For example, construction of the Vulcan rocket that replaces the Atlas-5 is all done in Alabama. One of the reasons Atlas-5 cost so much was the widespread distribution of its ULA facilities, probably done to satisfy congressional demands.
With Vulcan, ULA has instead been much more focused on making it less expensive so it can compete with SpaceX. Thus, it simplified its construction, putting everything in Alabama. (Choosing Alabama was likely to satisfy the most powerful senator at the time, porkmeister Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), who has now retired.)
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ULA has announced that it is shutting down its facility in Harlingen, Texas, that makes parts for the company’s soon-to-be retired Atlas-5 rocket.
The facility will shut down at the end of this year, with a loss of about 100 jobs.
This closure is actually a very positive sign for ULA. It indicates that it is streamlining its operations. For example, construction of the Vulcan rocket that replaces the Atlas-5 is all done in Alabama. One of the reasons Atlas-5 cost so much was the widespread distribution of its ULA facilities, probably done to satisfy congressional demands.
With Vulcan, ULA has instead been much more focused on making it less expensive so it can compete with SpaceX. Thus, it simplified its construction, putting everything in Alabama. (Choosing Alabama was likely to satisfy the most powerful senator at the time, porkmeister Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), who has now retired.)
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
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3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Harlingen is an hour away from Boca Chica…
I don’t SpaceX would want anybody wit the attitudes of Big Governmental space to infect their operation
Col.?????
Are you OK?
porkmeister Richard Shelby– LOL
Goodbye Atlas…Oh, Shelby’s junior replacement is on appropriations now.
Why, it’s as if-oh….I don’t know-another industious Shelby manspent years to know where the other Senators’ skeletons are and the price of silence is keeping that seat warm.
MuhaHAHA!
Signed-Bubba Palpatine
I don’t SpaceX would want anybody wit the attitudes of Big Governmental space to infect their operation
They’re *always* looking for people with the requisite skillsets at Starbase. Those skillsets don’t grow on trees in South Texas! If you’re a welder or precision measurement specialist at ULA-Harlingen, I don’t doubt that SpaceX would be willing to talk to you. And I suspect at least a few of the workers there *would* be interested in talking to SpaceX. You wouldn’t be in a union, but you also wouldn’t have to relocate, either. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of that is already happening.
This closure is actually a very positive sign for ULA. It indicates that it is streamlining its operations. For example, construction of the Vulcan rocket that replaces the Atlas-5 is all done in Alabama. One of the reasons Atlas-5 cost so much was the widespread distribution of its ULA facilities, probably done to satisfy congressional demands.
Probably the greatest advantage Vulan-Centaur has is that it is replacing two entirely different launcher families. With Delta IV and Atlas V being retired, that means ULA only needs one, not two, production lines; one, not two, sets of subcontractors; one, not two, sets of launch facilities on each coast. That alone will save ULA a lot of money.
Richard M wrote: “If you’re a welder or precision measurement specialist at ULA-Harlingen, I don’t doubt that SpaceX would be willing to talk to you. And I suspect at least a few of the workers there *would* be interested in talking to SpaceX.”
I don’t think that these are the people with the attitudes of Big Governmental space who would infect SpaceX’s operation. Management would likely be those people.
“Probably the greatest advantage Vulan-Centaur has is that it is replacing two entirely different launcher families. … [T]hat means ULA only needs one, not two, production lines; … sets of subcontractors; … sets of launch facilities on each coast. That alone will save ULA a lot of money.” [ellipses mine]
The formation of ULA in the first place was to save money by reducing the fixed expenses incurred by its two parent companies, Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The U.S. government needed two classes of launch vehicle, and after the Space Shuttle almost destroyed the U.S. launch providers, there were only these two companies capable of providing medium and large launch capabilities. Orbital Sciences was available for small payloads, but at quite a large cost per pound, although a lower price per launch.
Now that there is a second company available for medium and heavy lift, and soon to provide superheavy lift services, it is no longer important for ULA to be the sole source launch provider. There are other prospective providers of medium and heavy launch services, and even Northrup Grumman seems to be staying in this field.
ULA is a company that used to be a virtual monopoly, but now it has competition. It needs to find efficiencies in order to compete.