Blue Origin Joins SpaceX, ULA In Winning Bids For $5.6 Billion Pentagon Rocket Program (cnbc.com) 32
The Pentagon announced the first winners of its $5.6 billion National Security Space Launch program, with Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin securing a spot for the first time alongside Elon Musk's SpaceX and United Launch Alliance (ULA). These companies will compete for contracts through mid-2029 under the program's Phase 3, which is expected to include 90 rocket launch orders. CNBC reports: Under the program, known as NSSL Phase 3 Lane 1, the trio of companies will be eligible to compete for contracts through mid-2029. ULA and SpaceX have already been competing for contracts under the previous Phase 2 edition of NSSL: In total, over five years of Phase 2 launch orders, the military assigned ULA with 26 missions worth $3.1 billion, while SpaceX got 22 missions worth $2.5 billion. Blue Origin, as well as Northrop Grumman, missed out on Phase 2 when the Pentagon selected ULA and SpaceX for the program in August 2020. But with Phase 3, the U.S. military is raising the stakes -- and widening the field -- on a high-profile competition for Space Force mission contracts. Phase 3 is expected to see 90 rocket launch orders in total, with a split approach of categories Lane 1 and Lane 2 to allow even more companies to bid.
What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Blue Origin and me are equally experienced in orbital launches. How come I didn't get a contract?
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I see you do not understand how the Pentagon works. That was the civilian part of DoD that did this.
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Lmao I can't believe I got voted down here. So delicate.
Fuck off I did my enlisted time and saw your shortcomings and had to be quiet the whole time.
I'm never going to miss a chance to tear you fucks down as a civilian.
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Re:What? (Score:4, Insightful)
It probably signals a vote of no-confidence in ULA to bring any meaningful competition. The Pentagon doesn't want to be beholden to a single ego.
Multiple sources [Re:What?] (Score:4, Interesting)
The DoD has a policy, learned from experience, to not depend on a single provider for anything critical. These contracts, by the way, are "Lane 1", which will prioritize "commercial-like missions, allowing for a higher tolerance for risk."
It is interesting that they've added Blue Origin. Blue Origin has produced engines used in orbital rockets (Vulcan), and has flown suborbital rockets many times, but their orbital booster has yet to fly.
More sources:
https://www.airandspaceforces.... [airandspaceforces.com]
https://news.satnews.com/2024/... [satnews.com]
https://arstechnica.com/space/... [arstechnica.com]
Re:Multiple sources [Re:What?] (Score:4, Interesting)
Supposedly August for New Glenn test launch
Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket rises on launch pad ahead of debut liftoff [space.com]
I know Bezos was getting more involved with BO considering the deadlines they've missed so I imagine he made a push to get that debut before this contract and wants to hit a launch this year to put folks like the DoD a bit at ease.
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I predict the much more capable and economical Starship will be landing it's Super Heavy 1st stage booster long before New Glenn does. It already did the controlled descent into the Gulf on Flight 4, just have to get the chopsticks to grab it on a pad landing -which is going to be extremely hairy.
New Glenn is supposed to be able to do a 1st stage landing on six hydraulic legs which ought to be only slightly more complicated than a Falcon 9 landing but will still take some time work out. Like F9, NG will h
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I can agree that SH will probably stick a test landing before NG does but I think NG will be lifting actual payloads for (paying, not internal) customers before the entire Starship stack does.
Don't get me wrong I thin Starship is the coolest engineering project this side of ITER but the steps to viability for both platforms are different simply because Starship has so many new concepts to work through. Important work but still a lot of questions marks, especially with regards to the in-orbit work.
The 20+ l
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They all seem to be behind schedule at this point. Blue Origin is supposed to be supplying the 2nd lunar module after SpaceX. SpaceX is supposed to land humans on the Moon in a Starship next year, although due to delays elsewhere in the stack it looks like that won't be until 2026 now.
Ariane Space is behind with their new rocket which replaced the Ariane 5. Russia hasn't even bothered to announce any timescales.
Apollo is looking more and more impressive, and in hindsight wasn't actually all that expensive (
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Supposedly August for New Glenn test launch
Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket rises on launch pad ahead of debut liftoff [space.com]
I know Bezos was getting more involved with BO considering the deadlines they've missed so I imagine he made a push to get that debut before this contract and wants to hit a launch this year to put folks like the DoD a bit at ease.
That is out of date. Currently planned for Sept 29th. It was planned previously for the last 3 December 31sts, so I will believe it when it ignites its engines for the launch attempt.
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True. The government has never put out a bid for any company to create a new thing that has never been done before or given contracts to companies who haven't done that thing.
It's outrageous. We should be single sourcing everything to a single company driven by an extreme egotist. What could possibly go wrong? Or maybe we can hire some experienced Chinese companies to help out.
Is this Elon Musk fanboi cock sucking or is this irrational hate for the other billionaire who didn't promise you a trip to the
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Doesn't matter what Musk fanboys who love his current dementedness think or not.
SpaceX is currently, capably managed by COO Gwynne Shotwell -but due to a series of brilliant decisions Musk made some time ago is frankly, clearly so far ahead of every other old space, new space and national space programs it's not even debatable.
I don't understand what exactly people who are mad that SpaceX essentially has a near monopoly on cost-effective space flight think or want. SpaceX got there by taking huge risks, mos
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NASA never paid SpaceX a dime to develop landing/reuse
Nope all they did was provide SpaceX an absolute lifeline both early in it's development (the whole drama over getting that Falcon 1 flight to orbit was getting addition grant $$$) as well the COTS program seeding development of Falcon 9 instead of their original concepts as well as leveraging decades of knowledge and NASA tech (life support systems, PICA, lot's of knowedge sharing.
So yeah, SpaceX and Musk deserve a big old chunk of credit but really SpaceX is an example of a public/private partnership goin
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Even if Musk was stable I'd still be concerned about the monopoly. Monopolies limited the width of research and don't follow potentially good alternative paths once they've set foot on whatever path is working for them. That's a whole bunch of other science we lose out on. Also, your stable genius CEO could get hit by a bus and replaced by some egomaniac/incompetent/political hound/other asshole type at any time and now you're back to the same situation where one jackass is at the top of the pyramid and
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I mean they granted SpaceX the sole HLS contract.
Not up to date and not fully accurate. The other 2 bids for HLS were both substantially more than the budget allocated by Congress AND had various issues (in the case of Blue Origin conditions forbidden by the offered contract). Only SpaceX had a bid that was within the budget without violating the bidding rules. Naturally they received it. There also was not at that time the money for a 2nd contract in the budget. Since then Blue Origin DID get a contract to produce a HLS for follow up missions once t
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SpaceX is the only supplier who can commit to a launch and deliver at this point.
Also, Musk has Tesla, Starlink, robots, excavation, power and more. He is the only supplier entirely capable of colonizing other celestial objects. While BO and ULA (if they even deserve mention) look to be heading towards launching reliably, Musk has a full plan in place to launch an entire civilization. He will probably manage to have 100 Starships in flight to and from Mars launching a
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I neither love nor hate Elon, but the odds that he doesn't make/approve/veto all important decisions at SpaceX are ... "unlikely".
Monopolies are bad. That's it. We should not have any single company be the sole source of anything important.
For example, when we build weapons, such as further jets, there are times when the sufficient but not quite as good jet was chosen specifically to make sure the sufficient companies involved continued to have funds to exist because the slightly better company team won t
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The government was not asking for a new thing, they were asking for an old thing. Orbital rocketry is not new it's late 1950s or early 1960s technology. I actually like Bezos a lot more than Musk, but Bezos didn't put press his foot on the accelerator. Who do you want driving your bus, your fun uncle who drives super slowly or the irascible one who gets you there on time? It doesn't have to do with like or dislike but utility. Musk vs. Bezos .. I think Bezos is the better person in terms of character. If I
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I don't want any single person driving the one bus.
I want a pile of bus companies to choose from for every trip I take.
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True. The government has never put out a bid for any company to create a new thing that has never been done before
Irrelevant to this topic. The contract is for something that has been done for decades. It is however given to a company formed 24 years ago to do this very thing and which for that entire 24 years FAILED to even attempt their first orbital launch. So why give an orbital launch contract to them BEFORE they even make their first attempt? The closest they have gotten to this is selling TWO engines used on a booster that did launch a payload to orbit. Those engines of course did not themselves go to orbit
Welfare Queens (Score:1)
The militarization of Space (Score:2)
Blue Origin can barely make it to the Kármán line.
Re:The militarization of Space (Score:5, Interesting)
The X-37B has been operating forever. And that thing is public knowledge, which means that it’s the tip of the iceberg. When the US announces a military capability, you can be sure it’s only revealing 2 cards of a 5-card hand. When Russia announces a military capability, you can be sure that they’ll present their single hypersonic launch as a glorious, indomitable west-conquering system
The Chinese are a bit more careful about announcements. But the water in the fuel tanks of their missles suggests their capabilities might not be quite as fearsome as they claim.
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Well yeah, New Sheppard is a joke, but a working New Glenn would make them a clear, if somewhat distant #2 to SpaceX
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Well yeah, New Sheppard is a joke, but a working New Glenn would make them a clear, if somewhat distant #2 to SpaceX
Not really. BO has stated that without developing a reusable 2nd stage New Glenn can never by cost effective. They have also failed to learn the KISS principle and for example use two different engines and 2 different fuels instead of one of each (like SpaceX).
More the merrier, butâ¦. (Score:2)
Somebody in government has a crush on Bezos... (Score:2)
ULA, as a merged child of Boeing and Lockmart, was grandfathered-in and always qualified to launch pentagon payloads. It was argued that the pentagon had been there working with them over the decades as they developed the tech, and thus the pentagon had full visibility into, and trust in, the providers.
When that new upstart guy Elon Musk came along and said "hey! how can I qualify to compete for those big juicy tasty contracts?" the pentagon gakked, stuttered, and then had to scramble to make-up a set of of