Space Force looks to energize industry with next round of launch contracts

U.S. Space Force officials will sit down with industry executives in Los Angeles this week to discuss the fine points of the upcoming national security space launch procurement. Companies expect to hear details about the Space Force’s plan to attract new launch providers to compete for as many as 70 missions projected for the 2025-2034 timeframe. “It’s going to be exciting,” Col. Douglas Pentecost, deputy program executive officer for assured access to space, told reporters Feb. 24. The Space Force on Feb. 16 released two draft requests for proposals for the dual-track National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 3. One is for lower-end launch missions, and the other for the most demanding heavy-lift launches. Following this week’s meetings with the industry, a second draft RFP will be issued in May, and a final one this summer. The Space Force then will spend about a year evaluating bids. We’re targeting summer of 2024 contract awards – Col. Douglas Pentecost. United Launch Alliance and SpaceX in 2020 won the NSSL Phase 2 five-year contracts to fly about 35 missions. For Phase 3 the Space Force projects anywhere from 60 to 70 missions. About 30 of those will be less demanding “Lane 1” launches that could be performed by emerging launch providers flying medium-size vehicles. The other 40 in “Lane 2” would be heavy-lift missions to high orbits carrying the most sensitive military and intelligence satellites. Lane 1 will run from 2025 to 2034, with a five-year base period plus a five-year option. Bids will be solicited annually throughout the contract period, so will be opportunities to “on ramp” new companies. These launches could be performed from nontraditional spaceports.

New Glenn's seven-meter fairing undergoes its first jettison test at NASA Glenn Armstrong Test Facility Space Environments Complex in Ohio, in February 2022. Credit: Blue Origin

 

Lane 2 requires certified national security launch vehicles that fly from the Eastern and Western ranges. The contract period will run from 2025 to 2029. As in NSSL Phase 2, two winners will be selected, with the top scorer getting 60% of the missions.

Based on market research and conversations with launch providers, Pentecost said, there could be at least four new competitors in Phase 3: Rocket Lab, ABL Space, Relativity Space and Blue Origin. These companies would compete in the more “risk tolerant” Lane 1, although Blue Origin could have a shot at Lane 2 if New Glenn completes three flights and gets certified.
Incumbents ULA and SpaceX would be eligible to compete in either lane.

Commercial vs military demands

Launch companies in the coming years will be busy deploying commercial mega constellations but the Space Force is not worried about a predicted shortage of supply, Pentecost said.

Much of the available launch supply in the near term was gobbled up by Amazon’s space internet Projet Kuiper which is procuring 83 launches on ULA’s Vulcan Centaur, Blue Origin’s New Glenn and Arianespace’s Ariane 6.

Although NSSL launch providers are contractually obligated to prioritize national security missions, the Space Force tries to be flexible, Pentecost said.

“We have a really good partnership with our launch service providers,” he said. “They know we actually take priority. And we can bump a commercial payload. But we don’t want to do that because we know we’re leveraging their commercial business. And so we work together with industry and with NASA to make sure that nobody is getting impacted.”

“We have never really had a problem arranging our schedule and the commercial schedule,” he said. There are plans to increase launch capacity at Cape Canaveral on the East Coast and at Vandenberg Space Force Base on the West Coast, which will help speed up cadence.

Taking risks on new providers

Lane 1 will essentially be a wide and open competition. To be eligible, a company does not have to be fully certified as an NSSL provider but has to have a vehicle that’s already flown to orbit, said Col. Chad Melone, senior materiel leader for mission solutions for the Space Force’s space acquisition delta.

“That is to make sure that we’re not awarding contracts to paper rockets,” he said.

Companies that are transitioning from small to medium launchers, for example, are talking about launching tens of metric tons, and presumably could compete to deploy a plane of small satellites to low Earth orbit for the Space Development Agency.

When bids come in for Lane 1, the NSSL program will work with SDA or other customers launching small satellites to low Earth orbit and assess the risk of flying on a newly developed vehicle.

“SDA is probably a great example because they have a proliferated constellation” and the agency plans to launch dozens of satellites every year, said Melone.

Commercial proliferated constellations is what drives the launch demand now, Melone said. “We’ve talked very extensively with the companies and the investors and what we heard is that several companies are chasing after commercial demand for deploying entire planes of those proliferated constellations.”

The government does not know when these companies will be ready and has yet to learn the specifics of their launch systems so the Lane 1 contract allows for “tiered mission assurance,” said Melone, and their risk profile will be based on the maturity of their technology and other factors.

“Lane 1 really stems from a warfighter need as the architecture is transitioning from single high-value assets to more proliferated constellations,” he said. “We think that Lane 1 provides resiliency through diversity of systems.”

SES closer to $4 billion payout after ULA launch to near-geostationary orbit

United Launch Alliance launched a pair of satellites for SES Oct. 4 that are vital to the operator’s bid to claim nearly $4 billion in C-band clearing proceeds. SES-20 and SES-21 lifted off 5:36 p.m. Eastern from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, and separated from their Atlas 5 rocket around six hours later. The lengthy mission dropped the Boeing-built satellites off at 35,888 kilometers above the equator at 1.9 degrees of inclination, much closer than a typical launch of spacecraft to geostationary transfer orbit. The companies said this will cut several months off the time it will take these satellites to reach their final orbit destinations using onboard electric propulsion. “We didn’t want to wait longer than we absolutely had to to get our hands on the satellites,” SES CEO Steve Collar said in a call with journalists, and SES-20 and SES-21 will “be operational in November, which given that we’re sitting here in October is pretty impressive.” Having already launched SES-22 in June as part of its shift out of C-band, the Oct. 4 mission leaves SES with just two more satellites it plans to deploy by early next year to stay on pace to claim the maximum payout from the Federal Communications Commission. SES is paying for these satellites with proceeds from the FCC’s C-band auction last year, which fetched more than $80 billion from Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and other U.S. wireless carriers who need more spectrum for 5G. In addition to covering costs to vacate C-band for terrestrial 5G, the FCC is offering satellite operators nearly $10 billion in total incentive payments if they can meet the regulator’s spectrum-clearing deadlines.

   

An Atlas 5 launches the SES-20 and SES-21 C-band replacement satellites to orbit Oct. 4. Credit: ULA

SES and Intelsat hold the majority of C-band in the United States and are in line for a maximum of $3.97 billion and $4.9 billion, respectively, if they can fully vacate the lower 300 MHz slice of C-band by Dec. 5, 2023, by moving broadcast customers to the upper 200 MHz of the band.

They unlocked more than $2 billion in combined proceeds from the FCC last year after meeting the regulator’s first major C-band clearing deadline, however, hitting the regulator’s final deadline will require new satellites in orbit.

SES loses C-band battle against Intelsat

SES lost its bid Sept. 30 to convince a court overseeing Intelsat’s recent bankruptcy that it was owed $1.8 billion over a broken agreement to equally share C-band clearing proceeds.

SES brought the claim to the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Virginia two months after Intelsat filed for Chapter 11 in May 2020, and was one of its largest creditors.

The operator made the claim to cover damages resulting from Intelsat’s departure from a pact to equally share the compensation they would get from the FCC.

Intelsat argued the agreement was nullified once the FCC decided to reallocate satellite C-band spectrum to 5G cellular network carriers via a public auction, rather than a private process run by the satellite operators.

After more than two years of legal action, the court decided Oct. 30 to sustain Intelsat’s objection and disallow the claims from SES.

In a Memorandum Opinion, Judge Keith Phillips wrote that SES could have objected to the FCC’s draft order if it thought its split was unfair.

The satellite operator could have also “refused to participate in the accelerated clearing; it did neither,” he added.

“In short, the Court does not see anything ‘unjust’ about allowing the split of accelerated relocation payments set by the FCC based on objective criteria to determine the amounts available to SES and Intelsat.”

SES spokesperson Suzanne One said it is “disappointed with the ruling,” and “is reviewing with outside counsel its options to appeal.”

Intelsat, which emerged from bankruptcy in February and is looking to use C-band proceeds to pay off more debt and fuel its return to growth, “is pleased to have resolved this matter with a ruling in our favor based on the clear and convincing evidence presented,” Intelsat spokesperson Clay McConnell said.

Merger implications

The court’s decision likely lessens the need to rush any merger talks between the two satellite operators.

The Financial Times reported Aug. 4. that SES and Intelsat were in active talks about combining their companies amid consolidation deals elsewhere in the industry.

While SES and Intelsat have not explicitly commented on the rumor, they have each touted the benefits of satellite operator consolidation to help rationalize the industry.

“If the opportunity of consolidation is there, and it makes sense for our shareholders, we’ll grab it and execute hard,” SES CEO Steve Collar in a Sept. 14 SpaceNews interview during World Satellite Business Week in Paris.

“If not, we’ve got a fantastic plan … using the cash flows that we’re generating from video to invest meaningfully in” SES’ data-focused networks business.

More replacement satellites needed

SES and Intelsat have ordered 13 C-band replacement satellites between them to clear the spectrum for mobile operators.

SpaceX is slated to launch two more for SES on Falcon 9 rocket toward the end of the year.

Collar said in the media call that “we may end up pushing into early next year depending on the manifest,” but the satellites are essentially “more or less ready to go.”

The operator’s remaining work to vacate C-band following this launch will be on the ground as the operator moves customers and filters antennas across the United States.

SES ordered six C-band replacement satellites in total, and the sixth will be used as a ground spare.

Intelsat has ordered seven satellites for its C-band clearing plan, with none of them intended as ground spares, and has lined up Arianespace and SpaceX for launches starting Oct. 6.

SpaceX is slated to launch Galaxy 33 and Galaxy 34 on a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 7:07 p.m. Eastern.

ULA orders 116 Aerojet Rocketdyne engines for Vulcan’s upper stage

Aerojet Rocketdyne announced April 11 it has received an order from United Launch Alliance for 116 engines for the upper stage of ULA’s Vulcan Centaur rocket. Aerojet said this was the company’s largest ever contract for the RL10 engine. The large purchase of rocket engines comes on the heels of Amazon’s announcement April 5 that it selected Arianespace, Blue Origin and ULA to launch up to 3,236 satellites for its Project Kuiper broadband constellation. CEO Tory Bruno said ULA plans to fly Vulcan’s first mission late in 2022. Winning the Amazon deal would more than double the annual rate of Vulcan launches to as many as 25 per year, and ULA will ramp up production to meet the demand, Bruno said last week at the Space Symposium. ULA’s engine choice for Vulcan’s upper stage dates back to 2018 when it selected a variant of the RL10, the same engine used to power the upper stages of ULA’s legacy rockets Atlas 5 and Delta 4 Heavy. Over the past 60 years, more than 450 RL10 engines have flown on various ULA heritage vehicles. Due to a congressional mandate to end the U.S. military’s reliance on the Russian RD-180 rocket engine used in the Atlas 5’s first stage, ULA in 2015 announced it would build Vulcan Centaur as its next-generation rocket and selected Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine for the first stage. Each Vulcan Centaur upper stage will use two RL10C-X engines.

A Vulcan Centaur upper stage powered by two RL10 engines. Credit: Aerojet Rocketdyne

Aerojet said the RL10C-X is a variant of the RL1o developed for Vulcan Centaur that will “increase the use of additive manufacturing and introduce other advanced technologies to improve the quality, reliability, affordability and performance.” 

The RL10C-X uses a 3D-printed main injector and main combustion chamber, and has a 94-inch monolithic lightweight composite nozzle. According to Aerojet, the specific impulse, or Isp, of the RL10C-X is 461 seconds, which “puts it near the very top of the RL10 engine family in terms of performance. Specific impulse measures the amount of thrust generated by a rocket engine per unit of propellant consumed per second.

The engine is made at Aerojet Rocketdyne’s facility near West Palm Beach, Florida. The RL10 also powers the upper stage of NASA’s Space Launch System.

During a meeting with reporters at the Space Symposium, Bruno said one of his key “supply chain” concerns is building enough rocket engines for Vulcan to meet the projected demand.

“We are most concerned about the things that are the most complicated to build and take the most time,” he said. “Those are rocket engines and rocket motors. So Blue Origin, Aerojet Rocketdyne and Northrop Grumman are the key places we’ll focus on.” Northrop Grumman supplies Vulcan’s strap-on solid boosters.

Amazon signs multibillion-dollar Project Kuiper launch contracts

In the largest commercial launch deal ever, Amazon is purchasing up to 83 launches from Arianespace, Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance to deploy most of its 3,236-satellite Project Kuiper broadband megaconstellation, contracts worth several billion dollars. Amazon announced April 5 the agreements to launch an unspecified number of satellites on Ariane 6, New Glenn and Vulcan Centaur rockets over five years. The launches are in addition to nine Atlas 5 launches it purchased from ULA a year ago. Amazon did not disclose financial terms but said it is spending billions of dollars on these contracts as part of the constellation’s $10 billion overall cost. “Securing launch capacity from multiple providers has been a key part of our strategy from day one,” Rajeev Badyal, vice president of technology for Project Kuiper at Amazon, said in a statement. “This approach reduces risk associated with launch vehicle stand-downs and supports competitive long-term pricing for Amazon.” Amazon is buying 38 Vulcan launches from ULA. The agreement includes additional investments in launch infrastructure to support a higher flight rate, such as a dedicated launch platform for Vulcan launches of Kuiper satellites. ULA will make its own investments to support processing two launch vehicles in parallel.

Amazon’s 83-launch deal includes 18 Ariane 6 launches, 12 to 27 New Glenn launches and 38 United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur. Credit: Arianespace/Blue Origin/ULA

“With a total of 47 launches between our Atlas and Vulcan vehicles, we are proud to launch the majority of this important constellation,” Tory Bruno, chief executive of ULA, said in a company statement. “Amazon’s investments in launch infrastructure and capability upgrades will benefit both commercial and government customers.”

The Arianespace deal includes 18 Ariane 6 launches, a contract that Stéphane Israël, chief executive of Arianespace, described in a statement as the largest contract in his company’s history. Blue Origin is selling 12 New Glenn launches with an option for 15 more.

Amazon declined to provide details about the launch agreements, including the number of satellites each vehicle will carry. Beyond Gravity, formerly known as RUAG Space, will build satellite dispensers for the Kuiper satellites at a new facility in Sweden.

The launches will take place over five years, but Amazon declined to state when the launches would begin. None of the three vehicles are currently in service, although both Ariane 6 and Vulcan are scheduled to make their first launches this year. Blue Origin has not announced a revised date for the inaugural New Glenn launch but noted at the Satellite 2022 conference in March that it would not take place this year.

Amazon did not disclose which vehicles it considered beyond the three it awarded contracts for. Notably absent is SpaceX, which in addition to its Falcon and Future Starship vehicles is developing its Starlink broadband constellation that will compete with Kuiper. “Amazon has talked to every major launch provider and they will continue to explore all options for future launch services,” a spokesperson representing Amazon told SpaceNews.

Amazon needs many launches quickly to meet requirements of its Federal Communications Commission license awarded in July 2020. That license requires Amazon to have half its satellites in orbit by July 2026 and the complete constellation in orbit three years later. The spokesperson representing Amazon told SpaceNews that the contracts keep the company “on track to meet deadlines set forth in the FCC license.”

Amazon has yet to launch any Kuiper satellites. Two prototype satellites are scheduled to launch later this year on ABL Space Systems’ RS1 small launch vehicle, which also has yet to make its first flight.

“These launch agreements reflect our incredible commitment and belief in Project Kuiper, and we’re proud to be working with such an impressive lineup of partners to deliver on our mission,” said Dave Limp, senior vice president for Amazon Devices and Services, in a statement.

ULA on track to launch new Vulcan rocket in early 2021

United Launch Alliance, a leading launch provider to the U.S. government for 14 years, is on schedule to launch its next-generation rocket, the Vulcan Centaur, in early 2021, CEO Tony Bruno said. The new rocket is designed to provide a more efficient, more powerful launch vehicle than ULA's workhorse rockets, Atlas and Delta, with engines produced in the United States. The company previously bought Russian rocket engines, which Congress outlawed in a bill passed in 2014. The work on Vulcan proceeds amid a recession and workplace restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. "We decided at the beginning of March we were going to jump on this coronavirus prevention," Bruno told UPI. "We are not actually missing any milestones." Bruno said the company, like many, transitioned to a high level of remote work where possible, with sanitation, masks and social distancing in manufacturing areas. The result, he said, was far fewer absences than in a normal flu season. "Unfortunately, you just can't build a rocket from your couch in your pajamas," he joked. ULA is locked into a four-way battle with Elon Musk's SpaceX, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and legacy defense firm Northrop Grumman to provide military launch services, without a Russian-made engine.

Last week, SpaceX became the first private company to send astronauts into orbit with the launch of its Crew Dragon from the United States to the International Space Station.

ULA has agreed to buy engines made by Blue Origin, the BE-4, which gives those two companies a partial alliance in the competition.

The Vulcan rocket being assembled in Decatur, Ala., would provide 1.1 million pounds of thrust using two BE-4 engines. That compares to SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket with 1.7 million pounds of thrust on liftoff.

As a private company developing new technology, the company doesn't reveal how much it is spending on Vulcan development.

"It generally takes several billion to develop a new rocket from scratch. This is mostly completely new," Bruno said.

The Air Force (now Space Force) Space and Missile Systems Center announced in 2019 that it would accept only two of the four rocket systems under development, at some point in 2020. Some members of Congress, though, have suggested funding a third company to maintain competition.

The government has committed $967 million to ULA through 2024 for the development of the rocket, but it may not ultimately be chosen for missions. ULA is funding three-quarters of the rocket development budget, Bruno said.

Analysts have postulated that SpaceX and ULA will win the competition, said Marco Cáceres, an analyst at the Virginia-based Teal Group.

"ULA is the legacy company that's provided launch service to the Air Force for so long," Cáceres said. "They have an incredible record for reliability, but they're still not going to be competitive with SpaceX on price."

SpaceX's big advantage is that it is flying the Falcon 9 rocket on many missions for the government, while its three competitors still work on new rocket models. SpaceX also says it lowered the cost of launch by making its rocket's largely reusable.

SpaceX recovers the first-stage booster and the fairing halves, or nose cone, for many launches and reuses those.

ULA has a plan to reuse the engines by catching them with helicopters and grappling hooks, midair, as they fall back to Earth. While that has been done with rocket parts in the past, ULA still needs to prove that can work, Cáceres said.

"They are trying to be more reusable, but they don't have that track record," he said. "It's hard to change corporate culture overnight, though."

ULA has two additional customers signed up for Vulcan launches, including California-based Sierra Nevada, which has developed the new Dreamchaser spaceplane to launch cargo to the ISS.

Analysts believe ULA would struggle to bring Vulcan to market without the major Space Force contracts, said Chris Quilty, founder of Quilty Analytics based in the Tampa, Fla., area.

ULA must bring Vulcan to market quickly and safely, either way, Quilty said.

"Imagine what happens the first time ULA blows up something. The program would shut down for two years," he said. "I don't think they have the culture or risk tolerance that would allow them to quickly pivot from a failure."

SNC selects ULA for Dream Chaser launches

Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) has selected United Launch Alliance (ULA) as the launch vehicle provider for the Dream Chaser spacecraft's six NASA missions to the International Space Station. The Dream Chaser will launch aboard ULA's Vulcan Centaur rockets for its cargo resupply and return services to the space station, starting in 2021. "Dream Chaser can launch from any conventional rocket so we had great options," said SNC CEO Fatih Ozmen. "SNC selected ULA because of our strong collaboration on the Dream Chaser program, their proven safety record and on-time performance. This is bringing America's spaceplane and America's rocket together for best-of-breed innovation and exploration." Under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services 2 (CRS-2) contract, the Dream Chaser will deliver more than 12,000 pounds of pressurized and unpressurized cargo to the space station and remains attached for up to 75 days as an orbiting laboratory. Once the mated mission is complete, the Dream Chaser disposes about 7,000 pounds of space station trash and returns large quantities of critical science, accessible within minutes after a gentle runway landing. SNC's Louisville, Colorado-based Space Systems division is proudly partnering with Centennial, Colorado's ULA, boosting the already strong aerospace economic footprint in the state. "In this very competitive launch vehicle market, we feel privileged that SNC chose to launch this block of six missions to the ISS with ULA," said Tory Bruno, ULA president and CEO.

"This is one of the first contracts for our new Vulcan Centaur rocket, and the first of the six missions will serve as the rocket's second certification flight. We are excited to bring our more than 120 years of combined launch experience with our Atlas and Delta rockets, which build on a progressive history of technology development and advancement, to Vulcan Centaur."

Vulcan Centaur's flight proven design, coupled with innovative technology, is transforming the future of space launch. The new rocket will provide higher performance and greater affordability while continuing to deliver unmatched reliability and precision.

Approximately 90 percent of all of Vulcan Centaur's components will be flown first on Atlas V missions, so that its first flight will have reduced risk. Vulcan Centaur is a new class of space launch vehicle with the performance of a heavy launch vehicle in just a single core.

United Launch Alliance building rocket of the future with industry-leading strategic partnerships

United Launch Alliance's (ULA) next-generation rocket - the Vulcan Centaur - is making strong progress in development and is on track for its initial flight in mid-2020. The Vulcan Centaur rocket design leverages the proven success of the Delta IV and Atlas V launch vehicles while introducing advanced technologies and innovative features. "Vulcan Centaur will revolutionize spaceflight and provide affordable, reliable access to space for our current and future customers," said Tory Bruno, ULA's president and CEO. "We are well on our way to the introduction of Vulcan Centaur - the future of U.S. rocket manufacturing. With state-of-the-art engineering and manufacturing techniques, this rocket is designed specifically for low recurring cost." The new rocket design is nearing completion, and the booster preliminary design and critical design reviews have been completed. Vulcan Centaur will have a maximum liftoff thrust of 3.8 million pounds and carry 56,000 pounds to low Earth orbit, 33,000 pounds to a geo-transfer orbit and 16,000 pounds to geostationary orbit with greater capability than any currently available single-core launch vehicle. "Our new rocket will be superior in reliability, cost and capability - one system for all missions," said Bruno. "We have been working closely with the U.S. Air Force, and our certification plan is in place."

Following completion of a competitive procurement, ULA has selected Blue Origin's BE-4 engine for Vulcan Centaur's booster stage. The liquefied natural gas (LNG) fueled booster will be powered by a pair of BE-4 engines, each producing 550,000 pounds of sea level thrust. As previously announced, ULA has selected Aerojet Rocketdyne's RL10 engine for the Centaur upper stage, Northrop Grumman solid rocket boosters, L-3 Avionics Systems avionics, and RUAG's payload fairings and composite structures for the new Vulcan Centaur rocket system.

"We are pleased to enter into this partnership with Blue Origin and look forward to a successful first flight of our next-generation launch vehicle," said Bruno.

"We are very glad to have our BE-4 engine selected by United Launch Alliance. United Launch Alliance is the premier launch service provider for national security missions, and we're thrilled to be part of their team and that mission," said Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith. "We can't thank Tory Bruno and the entire United Launch Alliance team enough for entrusting our engine to powering the Vulcan rocket's first stage."

Vulcan Centaur will bolster U.S. manufacturing by adding to the more than 22,000 direct and indirect American jobs in 46 states supported by ULA programs.

"ULA has chosen the best systems available to create the Vulcan Centaur," said Bruno. "These engines and components will ensure ULA continues to lead the way in space exploration, maintain our record of success and remain America's launch vehicle for our nation's most vital missions."

Vulcan Centaur is ULA's next-generation, American rocket system. As a result of these agreements, the Vulcan Centaur will surpass current rocket capabilities and launch services at significantly lower costs, while still meeting the requirements of ULA's cooperative research and development agreement with the U.S. Air Force to certify the Vulcan Centaur for national security space missions.

"Strong partners are critical to the cutting-edge innovation that is leading us into the next generation in space and ensuring mission success," said Bruno. "Partnerships with Blue Origin, Aerojet Rocketdyne, Northrop Grumman, L-3 Avionics Systems and RUAG will allow the Vulcan Centaur to transform the future of space launch for the government and commercial markets, making launch more affordable, accessible and commercially available."

RL10 engine to power ULA's new Vulcan Centaur Upper Stage

United Launch Alliance (ULA) has selected Aerojet Rocketdyne's RL10 rocket engine to power the upper stage that will fly atop ULA's new Vulcan Centaur launch vehicle. The selection came as part of a long-term agreement between the two companies that calls for Aerojet Rocketdyne to provide RL10 upper-stage rocket engines to support ULA's current and future launch vehicles."Having the RL10 selected to support Vulcan Centaur means ULA and Aerojet Rocketdyne will continue working together to extend our track record of mission success well into the future," said Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO and President Eileen Drake. "We look forward to working alongside the outstanding team at ULA to make the Vulcan Centaur rocket a reality in order to provide reliable and affordable access to space for our nation." "ULA and Aerojet Rocketdyne have a long and successful history together that began with the first flight of our Atlas and Delta rockets in the 1960s," said Tory Bruno, ULA president and CEO. "We could not be more pleased to have selected the proven and reliable RL10 to power our Vulcan Centaur upper stage."

While some terms of the agreement remain confidential, it includes a long-term commitment by ULA to use RL10 engines on the company's current Centaur and next-generation Centaur upper stages for future ULA procurements, as well as a joint commitment to invest in next-generation engine development.

"The agreement also defines a path forward that will enable us to develop the next generation of RL10 engines that will incorporate additive manufacturing and other advanced technologies to make the engine more affordable while retaining its proven performance and reliability," continued Drake.

Last year, Aerojet Rocketdyne successfully hot-fire tested a full-scale, additively manufactured thrust chamber assembly for the RL10 that was built from a copper alloy using a 3-D printing technique known as selective laser melting or SLM. Since then, the company has been working to develop and qualify a variety of components that take advantage of SLM technology.

"With nearly 500 engines flown in space over the last five decades, the RL10 has earned an unmatched reputation in the industry," said Drake. "We will continue to build this proud legacy by supporting ULA's new Vulcan Centaur rocket for many years to come."