Elon Musk has declared war on the United Launch Alliance (ULA). Today at a press conference in Washington D.C., the entrepreneur declared that his company SpaceX is filing suit in the Court of Federal Claims to protest the monopoly that currently conducts Air Force and spy agency satellite launches. SpaceX wants to start competing with the ULA for launch contracts as soon as this year (though there are only 14 opportunities for that open competition).
"This is not SpaceX saying these launches should be awarded to us," Musk said. "If we compete and lose, that's fine. But why are they not even competed? This is not right."
SpaceX vs. ULA
Musk's protest involves the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, which the ULA (a joint company run by Boeing and Lockheed Martin) uses to launch Air Force and spy agency satellies. In December, the Air Force announced a block buy with ULA of three contracts with a combined value of just more than $3 billion. The Air Force says that the combined purchase saves the government money, but Musk argues that opening the contract to competition would save even more. Musk's rockets cost $60 million per launch. With added Air Force requirements, that price rises to $90 million. Still, he compares to a cost of $380 million for a ULA launch.
"The ULA rockets are basically four times more expensive," Musk said Friday. "This contract is costing us taxpayers billions of dollars for no reason."
When PopMech visited Cape Canaveral earlier this year, ULA officials said there would be chances to reduce costs, pointing at the Air Force's willingness to change procedures to make launches cheaper. At a recent conference, the ULA's CEO Dan Collins said the government has a new attitude about cost versus risk. "To go mess with your recipe is a risk that our customer saw as a step too far," Collins said. "That is no longer the case."
Don't Forget About Russia
Saving money is only one of Musk's arguments for choosing his upstart company to launch government sats. Here's another: ULA Atlas V rockets that launch Air Force and spy agency satellites use Russian RD-180 engines to get into orbit. Musk argues that this fact makes a national security asset vulnerable to the whims of international diplomacy. "In light of Russia's recent actions, it does not make sense to reward Russia with a huge contract for rocket engines," Musk told reporters after a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing.
ULA responds that it is prepared for any disruption caused by rising tensions and economic sanctions with Russia. "We have two years of safety stock inventory," ULA CEO Michael Gass told Congress. "We have always kept our ability not to be leveraged in case of supply interruption." But Congress does not like to hear that the United States is reliant on Russian hardware. It will cost five years and $1 billion to design and build a replacement for the Russian-built engine.
And this week we saw an ugly example of the kind of fallout that may occur because Russia and the West can't get along. Citing the situation in Ukraine, the Canadian government cancelled a June 19 launch of a military satellite that was set to blast off from a Russian spaceport in Kazakhstan. Officials say they are seeking a new launch provider. The response from Moscow was angry, as opposed to the shrugs they offered after other sanction announcements. "The Canadians screwed things up," Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said Friday. "They refused to launch the satellite and admitted that it was a military one, despite earlier assurances of its civilian purpose."
As Musk pointed out in the press conference, Rogozin is on the U.S. sanctions list.
