Three reports have collaborated the current list of bidders that wish to buy United Launch Alliance: Blue Origin, Textron, and Cerberus. The sale isn’t guaranteed but it is likely, as even ULA’s CEO has hinted towards the company’s interest.
The most likely outcome: Blue Origin
One of the storylines of 2023 has been the sale of ULA to potential bidders. First reported by Ars Technica, from the start Blue Origin’s participation in the sale sounded like common sense.
The Jeff Bezos company has been close with the legacy launcher for years, being a big contractor for its Vulcan rocket. While there were some rocky roads at the start trying to deliver good BE-4 engines to ULA. The two now seem closer than ever.
Literally, Blue Origin opened up a rocket engine plant in Huntsville, across the Tennessee River from ULA’s main production plan in Decater.
This would lead to an interesting internal competition between ULA’s Vulcan and Blue Origin’s New Glenn rockets. Both rockets are tailoring towards a similar market and could been seen as redundant systems. And for which rocket would win, well that’s pretty simple, it’s New Glenn.
However, it would give Blue Origin a jump start in conducting orbital launch missions. Between ULA’s heritage and the ability to operate Atlas, Delta, and Vulcan rockets until New Glenn comes online, the Blue Origin team would gain a large amount of knowledge.
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Who are Textron and Cerberus?
When Ars first reported the possible sale, only Blue Origin was confirmed as one of the three bidders. With two new reports from Reuters and The Wall Street Journal, we now know the other two bidders.
First is Cerberus, the private equity firm that Ars rumored was in the mix. The firm invests in everything from real estate to global infrastructure and has roughly $60 billion under management.
The second company is Textron, a major player in the commercial and defense aviation market. You might not recognize the name Textron, unless you’re a AV Geek like me, but you’ll probably know their subsidiaries like Bell, Cessna, and Beechcraft.
Textron is on the lower end of possibilities for buying ULA as it is on the “smaller” side of the group for value, with a market cap of just under $16 billion. For comparison, Bezos’s net worth is estimated at $165 billion.
ULA ownership under either of these companies will make for an interesting dynamic for the space launch market. Right now ULA is attempting to break out of its status as a boutique launcher for US government contracts and compete head-to-head with SpaceX. A new owner other than Blue Origin, whom has a similar goal, might make a change to that plan.
Rumors state that the sale of ULA wouldn’t take place until after a successful debut of the Vulcan rocket. That could take place as soon as early as January 8, with ULA now having a fully stacked rocket with Astrobotic‘s Peregrine lander integrated on top.
