The competition heats up: Tory Bruno, ULA’s CEO, announced yesterday that the company plans to cut 400 jobs next year, in addition to the 375 jobs they are trimming now.
The goal is to cut costs so that the company has a better chance of competing with SpaceX.
The competition heats up: At a space conference this week Aerojet Rocketdyne pitched its AR1 rocket engine, still under development, as the ideal replacement for the Russian engine in the Atlas 5.
The U.S. Air Force awarded Aerojet Rocketdyne a contract in February worth up to $534 million over five years to certify and start delivering flight-ready AR1 engines in 2019. Aerojet Rocketdyne says it already has kicked in $70 million, with its total investment expected to exceed $250 million over the life of the contract.
Van Kleeck, vice president of Aerojet Rocketdyne’s advanced space and launch business unit, said the Air Force contract — the largest of several propulsion-related awards the service has made in recent months — is a sign of the Air Force’s confidence in the AR1’s ability to provide an expedient replacement for the RD-180 engine the Defense Department is under pressure from Congress to stop using.
United Launch Alliance, however, has anointed Blue Origin’s methane-fueled BE-4 engine as the front runner to replace the RD-180 by serving as the main engine for the Denver company’s next-generation rocket Vulcan.
“The AR1 engine can fly both on an Atlas and Vulcan and it’s the only engine that can do so,” Van Kleeck said.
Aerojet has been losing business to the newer commercial space companies like Blue Origin, and desperately needs to find a customer for the AR1. In the long run the Air Force contract won’t suffice, as it really is no more than government corporate welfare and cannot sustain them as a company. This press conference was part of that effort.
In the heat of competition: ULA has scheduled May 27 has the new launch date of its next Atlas 5 launch, pending the results of its investigation into the engine anomaly from the previous launch.
They have not revealed whether they have pinned down the cause of the first stage engine’s premature shutdown.
The competition heats up: ULA and Bigelow Aerospace have announced a partnership to launch two of Bigelow’s largest space station modules, each with about as much interior space as both Skylab and Mir.
Both will be ready for launch by 2020. Neither company has made clear if they have any outside investment, though they left open the option of working with NASA and having the modules attached to ISS.
In the heat of competition: Because of the continuing investigation into the launch issue during its last launch, ULA has now extended the delay of the next launch of its Atlas 5 from one week to an indefinite delay.
The report at the link is very brief, and it also does not give a source. I was not able to find any other reports of this story after doing a web search as well as a search of ULA’s website, so it remains unconfirmed. Nonetheless, I suspect it is real, suggesting the company has uncovered some unexpected issue with the Atlas 5 that now requires more serious action that is going to take time. Stay tuned.
The competition heats up: In an effort to cut its costs, ULA has announced that it is laying off 375 workers.
The job cuts are not because the company is having financial troubles, but because they need to lower their launch prices to compete with SpaceX.They have always had some fat that could be trimmed but have not done so because, before SpaceX, there was no effort in the launch industry to cut costs. SpaceX, and some good healthy competition in a free market, is now forcing this upon everyone.
An investigation into the early shutdown of the first stage engine on the Atlas 5 during last week’s Cygnus launch is now centered around the rocket’s fuel system.
Though they state that the system appears that it used its oxygen supply too quickly, the company has not released more details.
In the heat of competition: ULA officials have delayed by one week the next launch of their Atlas 5 rocket in order to investigate the early engine shutdown of the first stage during Tuesday’s Cygnus launch.
The competition heats up: ULA’s Vulcan rocket has passed its first design review.
This is good news for ULA, but I wouldn’t get too excited. Announcements like this often have little to do with any real construction, and are often made to give the impression to the public and Congress and other investors that something is happening. Right now, all ULA is doing is pushing paper around. Only when they start cutting metal and testing real equipment will I consider Vulcan for real.
The article does provide an interesting tidbit. Despite protests that ULA hasn’t yet made a decision between Blue Origin or Aerojet Rocketdyne for the first stage engine of Vulcan, it was Blue Origin’s engine that they used for the design review, suggesting that this is the engine they plan on using in the real rocket.
In the heat of competition: The first stage Russian engine in the Atlas 5 rocket that put Cygnus in orbit this week shut down six seconds prematurely for reasons that are as yet unclear.
The early shutdown had no effect on the Cygnus mission, as the Atlas 5’s upper stage compensated for it by burning longer. Nonetheless, ULA has opened an investigation to find out what caused the early shutdown.
The deputy inspector general of the Defense Department has notified the Air Force that he is beginning an investigation into ULA and the DOD over their relationship and contract.
He also made it clear that the investigation was sparked by last week’s comments by a ULA executive who subsequently resigned.
This is all a game. The Air Force and ULA have been colluding for years to squeeze out any competition. There is no one in Washington who needs an investigation to find this out. The inspector general will issue a report, the Air Force will admit its error and promise to do better, and they will then try to have things continue as they have.
The one difference, however, will be that SpaceX will be there, providing real competition. Thus, what matters isn’t the investigation by the inspector general. What matters is the existence of a competing company willing to put cost pressure on ULA and the Air Force.
The competition heats up: A ULA Atlas 5 rocket tonight successfully placed an Orbital ATK Cygnus freighter into orbit to resupply ISS.
This was the second time an Atlas 5 put Cygnus into orbit. The next Cygnus flight will mark the return of Orbital’s Antares rocket.
This Cygnus capsule contains probably one of the more interesting engineering experiments flown by NASA in years. When it leaves ISS in about two months they will ignite a fire inside it to study the way fires spread and burn in weightlessness.
