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.)
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 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
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.