A long-awaited launch contract for national security missions was announced by the U.S. Space Force after close of business Friday evening. The mission spreads nearly $14 billion worth of missions between Blue Origin, SpaceX and United Launch Alliance (ULA).
The contract is known as Lane 2 of the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 3. These are firm fixed-price, indefinite-delivery contracts that will be issued in batches of missions to the launch providers over a five-year period beginning in FY25.
“Today’s award culminates nearly three years of government and industry partnership to increase launch resiliency and capacity,” explained Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, Program Executive Officer for Assured Access to Space. “The result is assured access to space for our national security missions, which increases the military’s readiness.”
The Space Force anticipates awarding 54 launches across the five order years with SpaceX receiving about 60 percent of the missions (28 launches), ULA getting 40 percent (19 launches) and Blue Origin getting seven missions.
The missions, once assigned are “projected to have a nominal two-year integration resulting in launches from FY27-FY32. In reality, a number of national security payloads have previously faced years of delays caused by the payload and not the rocket.
For instance, the USSF-52 mission, which was the most recent flight of the X-37B orbital spaceplane, was awarded to SpaceX as part of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle Phase 1A (changed to NSSL in 2019) contract in 2018 and was projected to launch in FY20. However, it ended up launching in December 2023.
Similarly, ULA was awarded the launch of the NROL-107/Silentbarker mission through the EELV in 2018 with a plan to launch in FY22. The mission didn’t launch until September 2023.
Lane 2 vs Lane 1
The Space Force intentionally split NSSL Phase 3 into two distinct lanes in order to help expand the availability of launch providers based in the United States. During a media roundtable in 2023, Col. Doug Penetcost, the USSF’s Space Systems Command’s Deputy Program Executive Officer for Assured Access to Space, described it as a more accepting window of opportunity.
“Lane 1 is more commercial-like missions or missions that can be risk-tolerant and you don’t have to be completely certified,” Pentecost said. “You can on-ramp every year to this IDIQ [indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity] and we’ll compete missions individually or in small blocks in order to get good value and to allow the emerging providers to bring new capabilities.
“They just need to bring what they want to bring. They don’t need to meet everything.”
In 2024, Blue Origin, SpaceX and ULA were all on-ramped to Lane 1 and just over a week ago, Rocket Lab, with its Neutron rocket, and Stoke Space, with its Nova rocket, were both on-ramped. So far, only SpaceX has received a NSSL Phase 3 Lane 1 task order, which was valued at about $734 million for seven Falcon 9 launches supporting the Space Development Agency’s (SDA) Tranche 2 Transporter Layer satellite constellation.
Lane 2 was designed to be far more stringent and look more like Phase 1 and Phase 2 in years past. In those cases, just two launch providers, SpaceX and ULA were selected for all of the missions, which required far more mission assurance and had payloads going to more difficult orbital destinations.
“Lane 2 is for those more critical payloads, the bigger ones, the ones that we want to go direct inject to GEO so that we save the fuel on the satellite so that we can maneuver in space, if we need to maneuver to a different area or maybe avoid things,” Pentecost said. “And so, you can imagine that that type of capability is unique to what the military needs, where on the commercial side, and what the commercial launch providers are kind of building to, are more of the LEO, the low Earth orbit stuff and more transfer orbits and the things that commercial needs.”
Another requirement of being eligible for Lane 2 awards was the ability to launch rockets from both the Western Range and the Eastern Range as well as supporting vertical integration on a company’s rocket.
For SpaceX, the company is in the process of bringing online Space Launch Complex 6 at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, which presumably would include a method of vertically integrating its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. It was previously used by ULA to launch its Delta 4 rockets.
Meanwhile, ULA has been converting SLC-3E from a configuration supporting the Atlas 5 rocket to one dedicated to its new Vulcan vehicle. Like with its Delta 4 pads previously (SLC-37 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Base and SLC-6 at VSFB), the new Vulcan pad will have an vertical integration building that rolls away from the launch pad to reveal the rocket.
In a media roundtable in mid-March ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno said the company had just finished installing the propellant tanks and the plumbing work was underway. He said the first Vulcan launch from VSFB (for an NSSL Phase 2 mission) is expected before the end of the year, assuming the payload is ready.
“We are proud that we have launched 100 national security space missions and honored to continue serving the nation with our new Vulcan rocket,” Bruno said in a statement following the contract announcement. “We are very pleased to be awarded 40 percent of the Phase 3 procurement. Vulcan is the right choice for critical national security space missions and is the only rocket today designed to meet all the requirements of our nation’s space launch needs.”
Blue Origin meanwhile is the newest entrant to launching these types of complex national security missions. It launched its first New Glenn flight back in January and was just cleared to make a second flight by the Federal Aviation Administration.
“Honored to serve additional national security missions in the coming years and contribute to our nation’s assured access to space,” said Dave Limp, Blue Origin CEO, in a post on X. “This is a great endorsement of New Glenn’s capabilities, and we are committed to meeting the heavy lift needs of our U.S. DoD and intelligence agency customers.”
Blue Origin doesn’t currently have an operational launch pad at VSFB, but it will reportedly build out a launch complex at SLC-9.
Both Limp and Bruno congratulated each other and SpaceX in posts on X in response to their businesses’ announcement. However, SpaceX founder Elon Musk took a different tact in what he posted to his social media site.
“Winning 60 percent of the missions may sound generous, but the reality is that all SpaceX competitors combined cannot currently deliver the other 40 percent!” Musk wrote. “I hope they succeed, but they aren’t there yet.”
