Tag: ULA

ULA picks Vulcan launchpads

9:48 pm

The competition heats up: ULA has picked the two launchpads it will use for its new Vulcan rocket.

United Launch Alliance’s next-generation Vulcan rocket will lift off from the company’s existing Atlas 5 launch facilities in Florida and California, according to the company’s Vulcan program manager. The launch pads at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Air Force Base will require modifications to accommodate the Vulcan booster, which is wider than the Atlas 5 rocket’s existing first stage, said Mark Peller, ULA’s Vulcan program manager, at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

This decision mainly outlines how ULA hopes to eventually reduce the number of launchpads it must maintain, and thus reduce its costs.

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Pentagon refuses ULA Russian engine waiver

9:37 pm

The Pentagon has denied ULA its request for a waiver to allow it to use more Russian engines in its Atlas 5 rocket than allowed by Congress.

It appears the Defense Department is in no hurry to give ULA any slack in its dependence on Russian engines, and instead seems to agree with Congress that the company should stop complaining and get around to replacing those engines as fast as possible.

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Cygnus grabs March Atlas 5 launch slot

9:15 am

The competition heats up: Taking advantage of delays in prepping a NOAA weather satellite, Orbital ATK has grabbed a March launch slot on the Atlas 5 for its Cygnus capsule.

Originally Orbital was going to launch on an Atlas 5 in December and then late in 2016 (based on Atlas 5 launch manifest availability), with the Antares launching a Cygnus in-between. By taking this March Atlas 5 launch, they can push the Antares return-to-flight launch back, thus giving themselves more time to install and test its new Russian first stage engines.

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Second Atlas 5 launch in only six days

9:04 am

The competition heats up: Only six days after its previous launch, a ULA Atlas 5 today successfully launched an American surveillance satellite.

This was the shortest time yet between Atlas 5 launches. While the most likely reason for the quick turnaround was centered on the needs of the satellites, I also suspect the increased competition for launch services has prodded ULA to demonstrate improved capabilities.

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ULA completes its 100th successful launch

12:52 pm

The competition heats up: In a rare private commercial launch, ULA’s Atlas 5 rocket put a Mexican communications satellite in orbit on Friday, the 100th successful launch for the company.

The company still faces the same problems it did before this launch: It is running out of Russian engines for the Atlas 5, Congress is not willing to give them permission to use more, and the cost competition from SpaceX is not going to let up.

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Congress places additional limits on Russian rocket engine use

10:48 pm

Bad news for ULA and the Atlas 5: A defense bill approved by the Congressional negotiators has placed further limits on the number of Russian rocket engines ULA can use in future Atlas 5 government launches.

The bill, which still faces an Obama veto, only allows ULA to use 9 more Russian engines. The company however says it needs to have at least 18 available to keep its ability to launch government payloads while it develops its new Vulcan rocket.

Read the whole article. The political complexity of this whole situation does not bode well for ULA or its Vulcan rocket. Too many players with too many conflicting goals appear to make it difficult for the company to push the development forward efficiently.

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Aerojet is considering increasing its $2 billion offer to buy ULA

9:29 am

The competition heats up: A news report today suggests that Aeroject Rocketdyne is considering increasing its $2 billion bid to buy ULA, thus forcing that company to use its rocket engines rather than Blue Origin’s.

The article contains a lot of information that helps explain the background behind Aerojet Rocketdyne’s offer as well as ULA’s recent switch to Blue Origin. For one thing, ULA apparently dumped Aeroject because the company refused to invest any of its own money in developing a new rocket engine.

Last summer, Aerojet’s board also rejected ULA’s request that Aerojet invest $300 million to accelerate work on the AR-1 engine it is developing as an alternative to the Russian RD-180 engine that powers ULA’s Atlas V rocket, the sources said. … Aerojet’s refusal to invest more in the AR-1 engine ultimately drove ULA to opt for the BE-4 engine being developed by privately held Blue Origin, which is owned by Amazon.com founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos, the sources said.

More significant, it appears that the Rocketdyne portion of the company is owned by the Russians!

An Aerojet takeover of ULA would also require Russia to give its regulatory approval and transfer a technology license for use of the RD-180 engines, according to two of the sources. Russia refused to transfer the license to Aerojet when it bought Rocketdyne from Pratt & Whitney, a United Technologies Corp (UTX.N) unit in 2013, forcing Pratt to retain control of a small company that brokers RD-180 sales, and could be more reluctant to do so now, the sources said.

While the quote above is somewhat confusing, it certainly suggests that, with Congress banning the use of Russian-built engines in American rockets, using Aerojet Rocketdyne engines by ULA has become problematic.

In related more bad news for Aeroject Rocketdyne, the company has just agreed to pay Orbital ATK $50 million in connection with last year’s Antares launch failure. In addition, they will take back the Russian-built engines they refurshed and sold to Orbital. The agreement also ends the company’s part in Antares.

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ULA and Orbital ATK ink new rocket motor contract

10:55 pm

The competition heats up: ULA has signed a new contract with Orbital ATK to provide solid rocket motors for its Atlas 5 and Vulcan rockets.

This deal is another nail in the coffin of Aerojet Rocketdyne, as it strongly suggests that the corporate leadership at ULA is very uninterested in doing any business with that rocket engine builder. Recently they have been taking their business every where but to Aerojet.

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ULA rejects Aerojet Rocketdyne $2 billion bid to buy company

4:41 pm

The competition heats up: Boeing today said that it has rejected Aerojet Rocketdyne’s $2 billion bid to buy ULA, the Boeing/Lockheed launch partnership.

“The unsolicited proposal for ULA is not something we seriously entertained,” Boeing spokesman Todd Blecher said. Boeing said it remained committed “to ULA and its business, and to continued leadership in all aspects of space, as evidenced by the agreement announced last week with Blue Origin,” a company owned by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos that is designing the engine for a new rocket being designed by ULA.

Lockheed declined comment, saying it did not discuss transactions with other companies. A source familiar with the matter said Lockheed’s refusal to comment did not reveal any disagreement between Lockheed and Boeing, and both companies agreed to reject the bid.

This might not end the issue, as Aerojet Rocketdyne officials might still follow up with a more formal proposal.

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Aerojet Rocketdyne lobbies its rocket engines to Congress and ULA

8:39 am

The competition heats up: Officials at Aerojet Rocketdyne yesterday lobbied hard for Congress and ULA to finance and buy their new AR-1 engine, designed to replace the Russian engines used in the Atlas 5 rocket.

More here, including the threat by those officials that the development of the engine could slip past 2019 if Congress doesn’t give the company more money.

The first comment at the bottom of the page of the first article above I think possibly outlines some of the reasons behind Aerojet Rocketdyne’s bid to buy ULA.

The development of the Blue Origin BE-4 is underway, and a launch vehicle like the proposed Vulcan would certainly be an asset to national security and commercial space development. But, as was stated, such a LNG/LO2 vehicle would need a different infrastructure to support it. ULA’s Atlas V is the most mature and reliable [launch vehicle] we have. The problem with it is a political one, because of its using the Russian RD-180 engine. From what has been published, plugging the BE-4 into an Atlas V is a non-starter; the BE-4 is meant for the Vulcan…if ULA can obtain funding on something more than a per-quarter schedule! Aerojet-Rocketdyne’s AR-1 would be a more logical choice to replace the RD-180, BUT…ULA won’t release the Interface Control Documents (ICD’s) to Aerojet-Rocketdyne. Hence, AR’s attempt to buy ULA.

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ULA and Blue Origin sign new agreement

10:04 am

The competition heats up: ULA and Blue Origin have signed a new agreement expanding the production of Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine for ULA’s new Vulcan rocket.

This agreement and the timing of its announcement, one day after news leaked that rocket engine manufacturer Aerojet Rocketdyne is making a bid to buy ULA, suggest that there are people in ULA that want to make sure the agreements with Blue Origin are set in stone should the purchase comes true.

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Aerojet Rocketdyne makes $2 billion offer to buy ULA

11:11 pm

The competition heats up: Rocket engine-maker Aerojet Rocketdyne has reportedly made a $2 billion offer to buy the rocket company United Launch Alliance (ULA), a partnership of Boeing and Lockheed.

If this deal goes through, it will put the squeeze on Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin, which presently has a contract to build rocket engines for ULA. Aerojet Rocketdyne had wanted that contract and had lost out. If they buy ULA, they could then kick Blue Origin out and take on the contract themselves.

I am honestly not sure what to make of this whole thing, however. It could be that Aerojet, having lost a number of contracts and faced with a significant lose in business, has decided it needs to become a rocket company to survive. It could also be that the corporate heads of ULA have decided that the company’s effort to replace its Delta and Atlas rockets with Vulcan is too risky, and they are better off taking the cash and running.

Or it could be any number of other reasons. We shall have to wait and see how this plays out.

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