Rocket Companies In All-Out Battle For Winning Air Force Award

The US Air Force has awarded the United Launch Alliance, SpaceX, Northrop Grumman and Blue Origin until August 1 for submitting bids and become one of the two launch providers that will be entrusted with the high-value national security payload in orbit in the decade ahead.

After number of months of behind-the-scenes battles over the calendar of the most important launch competition in the United States in the 20 years since the Air Force chose Atlas 5 and Delta 4 as its battle rockets, the battlefield has shifted to a theoretically neutral territory: the proposed bet.

But in the days since the May 3 launch of the formal Air Force recruitment for the Launch Service of Phase 2 of the Launch of the National Security Space, new disputes have arisen as bidders examine the final request for anything that could tip the competition in favor of an opponent.

Biased or not, ULA, SpaceX, Northrop Grumman and Blue Origin have less than 90 days to deliver detailed offers that will convince buyers of Air Force rockets that they deserve to be one of the two companies that will divide 60/40 to 34 missions. The military and intelligence community expect to launch between 2022 and 2026.

The bets could not be greater for the field of the competitors. ULA and SpaceX are currently launching most of the US national security satellites. UU., While Northrop Grumman and Blue Origin are trying to enter. All, except SpaceX, are developing new rockets for the competition.

When the Air Force chooses its two suppliers in 2020, the winners can earn billions of dollars to raise military satellites and spies in orbit. They are also prepared to become central actors in the geopolitics of space during the next decade. As the United States prepares for a strategic space race against China and Russia, the rockets selected by the Air Force will become bright symbols of the nation's greatest ambitions in space.

"Space is absolutely critical for us from the point of view of war," Assistant Secretary of Defense for the acquisition and maintenance, Ellen Lord, told reporters on May 10. "The launch into space is a fundamental capacity for us."

The Air Force has been preparing for this competition for years. ULA became the sole military launch supplier in 2006 when Boeing and Lockheed Martin combined their rocket divisions, but the rise of SpaceX and the intrusion of global events changed the landscape. By 2014, lawmakers pressured the Air Force to end ULA's monopoly and allow the new SpaceX competitor to compete in the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program.

The launching business was also embroiled in a political storm when the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 prompted US lawmakers to demand that the Air Force trust the Russian RD-180 engines that have powered the ULA Atlas 5 since the debut in 2002 of the rockets. After a protracted battle on Capitol Hill, the Congress of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2017 allowed the Air Force to order up to 18 Atlas 5 missions between December 23, 2016 and December 31, 2022. A spokesperson for the Air Force Space and the Missile Systems Center told SpaceNews on May 15 in a statement that the Air Force has obtained six Atlas 5 launches since the NDAA restrictions came into force, so it can still order 12 more before December 31, 2022. ULA currently has 10 national security releases in The Atlas 5 Manifest for 2019-2022. None of the seven Atlas 5 ULA missions flew for national security clients in 2017 and 2018 counted toward the limit of 18 missions since the launches were ordered before the law went into effect.

By: Preeti Narula

Content: https://spacenews.com/crunch-time-rocket-companies-in-all-out-battle-for-air-force-award/