That equates to a 60-40 split between SpaceX and ULA for the bulk of the missions. Going into the competition, military officials set aside seven additional missions to launch with a third provider, allowing a new player to gain a foothold in the market. The Space Force reserves the right to reapportion missions between the three providers if one of them runs into trouble.<\/p>\n
The Pentagon confirmed an unnamed fourth company also submitted a proposal but wasn\u2019t selected for Phase 3.<\/p>\n
Rounded to the nearest million, the contract with SpaceX averages out to $212 million per launch. For ULA, it\u2019s $282 million, and Blue Origin\u2019s price is $341 million per launch. But take these numbers with caution. The contracts include a lot of bells and whistles, pricing them higher than what a commercial customer might pay.<\/p>\n
According to the Pentagon, the contracts provide \u201claunch services, mission unique services, mission acceleration, quick reaction\/anomaly resolution, special studies, launch service support, fleet surveillance, and early integration studies\/mission analysis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Essentially, the Space Force is paying a premium to all three launch providers for schedule priority, tailored solutions, and access to data from every flight of each company\u2019s rocket, among other things.<\/p>\n New Glenn lifts off on its debut flight.<\/p>\n Credit: \u201cWinning 60% of the missions may sound generous, but the reality is that all SpaceX competitors combined cannot currently deliver the other 40%!,\u201d Elon Musk, SpaceX\u2019s founder and CEO, posted on X. \u201cI hope they succeed, but they aren\u2019t there yet.\u201d<\/p>\n This is true if you look at each company\u2019s flight rate. SpaceX has launched Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets 140 times over the last 365 days. These are the flight-proven rockets SpaceX will use for its share of Space Force missions.<\/p>\n ,<\/p>\n ULA has logged four missions in the same period, but just one with the Vulcan rocket it will use for future Space Force launches. And Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos\u2019 space company, launched the heavy-lift New Glenn rocket on its first test flight in January.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are proud that we have launched 100 national security space missions and honored to continue serving the nation with our new Vulcan rocket,\u201d said Tory Bruno, ULA\u2019s president and CEO, in a statement.<\/p>\n ULA used the Delta IV and Atlas V rockets for most of the missions it has launched for the Pentagon. The Delta IV rocket family is now retired, and ULA will end production of the Atlas V rocket later this year. Now, ULA\u2019s Vulcan rocket will take over as the company\u2019s sole launch vehicle to serve the Pentagon. ULA aims to eventually ramp up the Vulcan launch cadence to fly up to 25 times per year.<\/p>\n After two successful test flights, the Space Force formally certified the Vulcan rocket last week, clearing the way for ULA to start using it for military missions in the coming months. While SpaceX has a clear advantage in number of launches, schedule assurance, and pricing\u2014and reliability comparable to ULA\u2014Bruno has recently touted the Vulcan rocket\u2019s ability to maneuver over long periods in space as a differentiator.<\/p>\n \u201cThis award constitutes the most complex missions required for national security space,\u201d Bruno said in a ULA press release. \u201cVulcan continues to use the world\u2019s highest energy upper stage: the Centaur V. Centaur V\u2019s unmatched flexibility and extreme endurance enables the most complex orbital insertions, continuing to advance our nation\u2019s capabilities in space.\u201d<\/p>\n ,<\/p>\n Blue Origin\u2019s New Glenn must fly at least one more successful mission before the Space Force will certify it for Lane 2 missions. The selection of Blue Origin on Friday suggests military officials believe New Glenn is on track for certification by late 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cHonored to serve additional national security missions in the coming years and contribute to our nation\u2019s assured access to space,\u201d Dave Limp, Blue Origin\u2019s CEO, wrote on X. \u201cThis is a great endorsement of New Glenn\u2019s capabilities, and we are committed to meeting the heavy lift needs of our US DoD and intelligence agency customers.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s something you must understand about the way the military buys launch services. For this round of competition, the Space Force divided the NSSL program into two lanes.<\/p>\n Friday\u2019s announcement covers Lane 2 for traditional military satellites that operate thousands of miles above the Earth. This bucket includes things like GPS navigation satellites, NRO surveillance and eavesdropping platforms, and strategic communications satellites built to survive a nuclear war. The Space Force has a low tolerance for failure with these missions. Therefore, the military requires rockets to be certified before they can launch big-ticket satellites, each of which often costs hundreds of millions, and sometimes billions, of dollars.<\/p>\n The Space Force required all Lane 2 bidders to show their rockets could reach nine \u201creference orbits\u201d with payloads of a specified mass. Some of the orbits are difficult to reach, requiring technology that only SpaceX and ULA have demonstrated in the United States. Blue Origin plans to do so on a future flight.<\/p>\n This image shows what the Space Force\u2019s fleet of missile warning and missile tracking satellites might look like in 2030, with a mix of platforms in geosynchronous orbit, medium-Earth orbit, and low-Earth orbit. The higher orbits will require launches by \u201cLane 2\u201d providers.<\/p>\n Credit: The military projects that it will order 54 launches in Lane 2 from this year through 2029, with announcements each October of exactly which missions will go to each launch provider. This year, it will be just SpaceX and ULA. The Space Force said Blue Origin won\u2019t be eligible for firm orders until next year. The missions would launch between 2027 and 2032.<\/p>\n ,<\/p>\n \u201cAmerica leads the world in space launch, and through these NSSL Phase 3 Lane 2 contracts, we will ensure continued access to this vital domain,\u201d said Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, acting assistant secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration. \u201cThese awards bolster our ability to launch critical defense satellites while strengthening our industrial base and enhancing operational readiness.\u201d<\/p>\n Lane 1 is primarily for missions to low-Earth orbit. These payloads include tech demos, experimental missions, and the military\u2019s mega-constellation of missile-tracking and data-relay satellites managed by the Space Development Agency. For Lane 1 missions, the Space Force won\u2019t levy the burdensome certification and oversight requirements it has long employed for national security launches. The Pentagon is willing to accept more risk with Lane 1, encompassing at least 30 missions through the end of the 2020s, in an effort to broaden the military\u2019s portfolio of launch providers and boost competition.<\/p>\n Last June, Space Systems Command chose SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin for eligibility to compete for Lane 1 missions. SpaceX won all nine of the first batch of Lane 1 missions put up for bids. The military recently added Rocket Lab\u2019s Neutron rocket and Stoke Space\u2019s Nova rocket to the Lane 1 mix. Neither of those rockets have flown, and they will need at least one successful launch before approval to fly military payloads.<\/p>\n The Space Force has separate contract mechanisms for the military\u2019s smallest satellites, which typically launch on SpaceX rideshare missions or dedicated launches with companies like Rocket Lab and Firefly Aerospace.<\/p>\n Military leaders like having all these options and would like even more. If one launch provider or launch site is unavailable due to a technical problem\u2014or, as some military officials now worry, an enemy attack\u2014commanders want multiple backups in their toolkit. Market forces dictate that more competition should also lower prices.<\/p>\n \u201cA robust and resilient space launch architecture is the foundation of both our economic prosperity and our national security,\u201d said US Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman. \u201cNational Security Space Launch isn\u2019t just a program; it\u2019s a strategic necessity that delivers the critical space capabilities our warfighters depend on to fight and win.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The US Space Force announced Friday it selected SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, and Blue Origin for $13.7 billion in contracts to deliver the Pentagon\u2019s most critical military satellites to orbit into the early 2030s. These missions will launch the government\u2019s heaviest national security satellites, like the National Reconnaissance Office\u2019s large, bus-sized spy platforms, and deploy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[509,479,678,25,257,510,316,750,2118,364],"class_list":["post-44333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-blue-origin","tag-falcon-9","tag-falcon-heavy","tag-launch","tag-military-space","tag-new-glenn","tag-spacex","tag-united-launch-alliance","tag-us-space-force","tag-vulcan"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44333"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/NG1-Liftoff-Horizontal.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Blue Origin<\/p>\n<\/figure>\nNavigating NSSL<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/space_sensing_graphic_b-copy.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Space Systems Command<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n