Northrop Grumman and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Were Left Out In The Cold

The Space and Missile Systems Center, in partnership with the National Reconnaissance Office, competitively awarded two Firm-Fixed-Price, Indefinite Delivery Requirement contracts for National Security Space launch services to United Launch Alliance LLC and SpaceX.

The awards are worth billions and are basically split 50% for ULA and 40% for SpaceX. Northrop Grumman and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin were left out in the cold and walked away without any of this highly sought-after business -which should add up to $1 billion per year on launches.

Already; ULA has been assigned USSF-51 and USSF-106 scheduled for launch in the second quarter fiscal year 2022 and fourth quarter fiscal year 2022, respectively. SpaceX has been assigned USSF-67, scheduled for launch in the fourth quarter fiscal year of 2022.

Future launch services will be placed on subsequent Task Orders by mission and will be publicly announced upon issuance. Task orders for the launch service support and launch service contracts will be issued to ULA for $337 million and SpaceX for $316 million for launch services to meet fiscal year 2022 launch dates.

The Space and Missile Systems Center, in partnership with the National Reconnaissance Office, ware responsible for the competitively awarded two Firm-Fixed-Price, Indefinite Delivery Requirement contracts for National Security Space launch services.

“This was an extremely tough decision and I appreciate the hard work industry completed to adapt their commercial launch systems to affordably and reliably meet our more stressing national security requirements,” said Col. Robert Bongiovi, director of SMC’s Launch Enterprise.

“I look forward to working with ULA and SpaceX as we progress towards our first Phase 2 launches.”

FMI: www.af.nil, www.spaceforce.mil, www.spacex.com, www.ulalaunch.com