Former AF Civilian Employee’s New Job With AeroJet Follows Contract Award To The Company By Months

Just a few months after a multi-billion-dollar contract for military launches was awarded to United Launch Alliance (ULA), a former Air Force contracting officer accepted a new executive position with the company.

That doesn't pass the smell test, according to Elon Musk (pictured) and the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC). Musk is the CEO of SpaceX, which hoped to get some of that launch business from the Air Force.

Musk went to Twitter last week to call for an investigation of Roger "Scott" Correll, a civilian employee of the Air Force who retired earlier this year after playing an instrumental role in the contract award to ULA. The Boeing/Lockheed Martin joint venture was given an exclusive contract to conduct 36 planned launches for the USAF. After retiring from the Air Force, Correll was hired as the vice president of government acquisition and policy by Aerojet Rocketdyne, which provides the rocket engines used by ULA.

Musk cited an article by the NLPC in his Tweet. In the article, Peter Flaherty, president of NLPC, said "There are a lot of unanswered questions, and the sums of money involved are so enormous that the taxpayers are entitled to some answers."

Musk said that Correll had approached SpaceX about a job, but he had been turned down by the company. Aerojet Rocketdyne said the hiring had been cleared by the Air Force, and that there is no conflict of interest involved.

ULA defended the contract award saying it is the only company currently certified to provide such services to the Air Force, a point Musk concedes. But, he says, SpaceX has passed all the necessary milestones to become certified later this year, and should not have been frozen out of such a large and long-running contract simply because of that factor.

SpaceX has filed a lawsuit challenging the contract award with the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C.

FMI: www.uscfc.uscourts.gov, http://nlpc.org/