SpaceX nod opens up competition in US launch industry
The Falcon 9 rocket of Elon Musk’s SpaceX has won United States Air Force certification for national security space missions, breaking the hold on sensitive satellite launches by a Boeing-Lockheed Martin venture.
Space Exploration Technologies is expected to bring competition to military launches after reshaping the commercial rocket market with prices posted on its website.
The first contest between the two launch providers could heat up as soon as next month, when the air force said it would issue a request for proposals for GPS III launch services.
“SpaceX’s emergence as a viable commercial launch provider provides the opportunity to compete launch services for the first time in almost a decade,” Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said this week. “Ultimately, leverage of the commercial space market drives down cost to the American taxpayer and improves our military’s resiliency.”
Musk’s venture has fought for a role in military launches, which include satellites that let troops communicate on battlefields.
The segment, estimated at about US$70 billion ($96.6 billion) through 2030 by the US Government Accountability Office, is the largest in a market that also includes civilian and commercial contracts, such as work SpaceX does for Nasa.
SpaceX plans to launch government satellites for less than US$100 million per Falcon 9 mission, SpaceX chief Gwynne Shotwell has said.
United Launch Alliance, the Boeing-Lockheed venture, charges US$160 million or more for the comparably sized Atlas V spacecraft, which uses a Russian-made RD-180 engine, says Marco Caceres, director of space studies with Teal Group, a Fairfax, Virginia-based consultant.
SpaceX’s certification “is going to force ULA to be much more competitive on price, but still maintain their high standards on performance. This does jar the door open for SpaceX. It’s theirs to lose. They have a vehicle that’s proven and about half the price of the nearest competitor.”
United Launch said it was “wellpositioned to compete on a level playing field” given cost-savings initiatives and the new, lower-cost and reusable Vulcan rocket in de- velopment with an American-made engine to replace the RD-180.
Certifying SpaceX to ferry sensitive military and national-security payloads took two years and involved 150 people, at a cost of more than US$60 million, the air force said.
In January, SpaceX agreed to drop its lawsuit against the air force’s “block buy” contract awarded to United Launch. The air force said then it would “work collaboratively with SpaceX to complete the certification process in an efficient and expedient manner”.
SpaceX plans to aggressively compete with Lockheed and Boeing. SpaceX has argued that the programme, known by the military as the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, has cost taxpayers millions of dollars a year because United Launch has had a lock on the contracts since the two rivals joined forces a decade ago.
“The certification of SpaceX as a provider for defence space launch contracts is a win for competition,” said Senator John McCain, a Republican from Arizona. “Over the last 15 years, as sole-source contracts were awarded, the cost of EELV was quickly becoming unjustifiably high.
“I am hopeful that this and other new competition will help to bring down launch costs and end our reliance on Russian rocket engines.”
Musk’s venture will probably see little short-term impact from the certification announcement given its already full launch schedule and the limitations of its Falcon 9 to haul heavy payloads to orbit, said Scott Pace, director of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute.
SpaceX already has a US$1.6 billion contract with Nasa to resupply the International Space Station and a second contract, valued at as much as $2.6 billion, to transport crews. It has opened a Seattle engineering office to develop its own satellites.
SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to launch on a Falcon 9 rocket on June 26, the firm’s cargo mission under the Nasa contract and its eighth visit to the space station.
After the Falcon 9 certification, SpaceX will go through a similar process for the Falcon Heavy, a larger rocket designed to carry people into space and eventually to Mars. The company plans to conduct the craft’s first test flight this year.
Musk, 43, is also CEO of Tesla Motors, the luxury electric-car maker. He founded SpaceX in 2002 with the ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets.