The U.S. space agency announced Tuesday that it has awarded $ 384 million in contracts to United Launch Alliance and SpaceX, which have given each company two missions to launch military satellites in 2023.
United Launch Alliance has won missions for the USSF-112 and USSF-87 missions. Both launches will use the next generation VLcan Centaur rocket from ULA and take off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
The contracts awarded to ULA are valued at nearly $ 224.3 million, according to a report on the Department of Defense’s website. The USSF-112 mission is scheduled for the second quarter of 2023, while the USSF-87 mission is due to be lifted in the third quarter of 2023 in the third quarter, according to the Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center.
The Vulcan Centaur rocket is available in variants with zero, two, four or six fixed rocket amplifiers. The Vulcan Centaur is scheduled for its first test flight at the end of 2021.
The Space Force did not disclose the configuration of the rockets for the USSF-112 and USSF-87 missions, or any details as to which satellites will carry the missions.
ULA CEO Tory Bruno tweeted that both missions would direct the delivery of their military payloads into ‘high-energy orbits’, which would likely mean the Vulcan Centaur would place the satellites at higher altitudes in an orbit.
“I can not talk about mission details except to say that these are challenging orbits,” he tweeted.
SpaceX has been commissioned to launch the USSF-36 and NROL-69 mission with cargo loads for the Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office, which owns the U.S. government’s fleet of intelligence-gathering pioneer satellites. The Pentagon said SpaceX’s contracts valued at more than $ 159.7 million.
The SpaceX missions will be launched on Falcon 9 rockets, one taking off from Cape Canaveral and the other from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. The USSF-36 mission is scheduled for the first quarter of 2023, and the NROL-69 mission has a launch date in the third quarter of 2023, according to the Space and Missile Systems Center.
The tasks assigned to ULA both include the cost of “basic launch services and mission integration”, the Space Force said. SpaceX’s USSF-36 task order contains launch services and integration, but the NROL-69 task order contains only basic launch services. The NGO will fund mission integration costs separately, SMC said.
The four missions announced Tuesday come from the latest group of missions awarded to ULA and SpaceX under the National Security Space Launch Phase 2 contracts. The Pentagon announced last August that ULA and SpaceX had won a lengthy competition for contracts to launch the Army’s most critical and expensive space shipments, beating the proposals of Northrop Grumman and Blue Origin.
The Space Force will order Phase 2 missions from ULA and SpaceX until the end of 2024 for launches that may take place in late 2027.
ULA, a 50-50 joint venture founded by Boeing and Lockheed Martin in 2006, won 60 percent of the National Security Space Launch contracts for missions during the period. SpaceX will receive 40 percent.
Simultaneously with the announcement of Phase 2 in August last year, Pentagon officials awarded the first three Phase 2 launch missions – two to ULA and one to SpaceX – for missions in 2022. ULA received $ 337 million last year for its first two tasks. , while SpaceX was awarded $ 316 million, including money to upgrade launch facilities and payload screens to accommodate all of the army’s satellites.
The companies will use their Vulcan Centaur, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets to launch the National Security Space missions.
“The National Security Space Launch Phase 2 Launch Service Procurement Contracts offer affordability, flexibility and exceptional reliability to our customers,” said Col. Robert Bongiovi, director of SMC’s launch business, said. ‘This is the second order of the five-year Phase 2 order period. We are very pleased with the flexibility our Phase 2 providers offer to make the best launch choices and adjustments as we go along. ”
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