While the timing and subject matter make it seem like a footnote to yesterday's piece on Space Force announcing another round of launch contracts, it really has nothing to do with those contracts, it's the existing contracts, split between ULA and SpaceX.
Since ULA's Vulcan still isn't ready to launch national security payloads, Space Force is moving a payload from ULA over to SpaceX.
Space Systems Command, which oversees the military's launch program, announced Monday that it is reassigning the launch of a Global Positioning System satellite from ULA's Vulcan rocket to SpaceX's Falcon 9. This satellite, designated GPS III SV-08 (Space Vehicle-08), will join the Space Force's fleet of navigation satellites beaming positioning and timing signals for military and civilian users around the world.
The back story is a bit mind boggling but the biggest part of that is how
common this sort of thing is in even as routine a mission as launching another
GPS satellite. Space Force booked the GPS III SV-08 launch in
2023, when ULA was planning to begin flying military satellites on Vulcan by
the middle of last year; 2024. So when Space Force booked this mission,
they expected it to have launched a year ago. ULA and Vulcan were
probably on schedule to launch about a year from now. With luck.
Enter a little phrase in these launch contracts that gives Space Force the option of "launch vehicle trade" between qualified launch services. GPS III SV-08 looks to launch before the end of May, 7-1/2 weeks from now. (NextSpaceflight shows "NET May") Bear in mind that this launch vehicle trade is just that. In exchange for launching this GPS satellite assigned to ULA, SpaceX has to trade a launch they were assigned over to ULA. This is not the first time they've done a trade like this. Last year, Space Force performed a trailblazing SpaceX GPS mission (second story here) and reallocated another future GPS launch to Vulcan.
While ULA has made public statements of 25 launches per year or twice a month, that depends on being a very smoothly operating, "well-oiled machine," in how well they cycle between vehicles. Not to mention a Vulcan production rate that they've never demonstrated. So far, there have been two Vulcan launches. ULA has their work cut out for them. With the 19 missions added in last week's announcement, the Vulcan backlog now stands at 89 missions. At 25/year, that's over three years worth of launches. How soon could they make it to 25/year? Two or three years from now? More?
Last year, the Pentagon's chief acquisition official for space wrote a letter to ULA's owners—Boeing and Lockheed Martin—expressing concern about ULA's ability to scale the manufacturing of the Vulcan rocket.
"Currently there is military satellite capability sitting on the ground due to Vulcan delays," Frank Calvelli, the Pentagon's chief of space acquisition, wrote in the letter.
The GPS III SV-08 satellite shipped to Cape Canaveral Space Force Station,
Florida, last week in preparation for launch at the end of May. Credit:
Lockheed Martin
GPS is so well-integrated into our lives now, mostly by way of our phones instead of the dedicated receivers we used decades ago (I still have two sitting around the house) that I don't need to dwell on how important it is.
This satellite, No. 8 of 10 in the GPS III series, will replace an aging navigation satellite in the constellation. The GPS network has 31 operational satellites (it needs 24 for global coverage), but some of them are quite old. The longest-lived member of the GPS constellation launched in 1997 and was built for a design life of seven-and-a-half years.
The GPS III satellites broadcast more accurate navigation signals, and they're more difficult for an adversary to jam. This generation of GPS satellites also has a new channel compatible with Europe's Galileo navigation network, allowing users to merge signals from both constellations to derive even better position estimates.
So, there's a hunger to launch these modernized GPS III satellites. There are two more satellites in this series after GPS III SV-08. They're both finished and in storage, waiting for launch on Vulcan. An upgraded GPS design, known as GPS IIIF, will begin launching in 2027.
ULA isn't going to make that schedule. In fact, between Blue Origin slow-walking production of the BE4 engines and ULA's own sketchy financial future, in three years I doubt that ULA will still exist. And I doubt that Blue Origin will be able to meet its production or launch schedule.
ReplyDeleteAt what point does the US government say "Copulate this" and start cancelling future contracts and start issuing them only on what the company can do, now, here, this moment, when the contract is signed.
I wouldn't mind if there was a launch pool every month. Space Force wants 8 launches in, say, May 2025. Two to three months before, bid out that launch package. Companies can bid on what they can launch, with already built rockets.
ULA wants 2 launch contracts? Better have 2 Vulcans primed and ready to go. BO wants 4? Better have 4 New Glenns sitting around ready. No rockets ready? No launch contract for you.
That's how you do a launch contract.
Because, under the current rules, what happens when ULA can't fulfill their portion of the current block of launches? Keep changing dates with SpaceX? What happens when the inevitable comes, the contract is ending and ULA has to launch 10 in one month to meet their commitment because they've swapped all previous launches with SpaceX already?
It's like a trucking contract. You don't bid on a shipping contract with a company with no actual trucks or drivers available and with the intent you're going to buy the trucks and hire the drivers once you get the contract. Sure you can add trucks and drivers and facilities once you got the paper, but you don't get the paper unless you can perform. That's how the real world generally works.
Welcome to fedgov contracting.
ReplyDeleteI foresee fedgov telling Sp X to share proprietary engineering or we're gonna shove anti trust at you. Quite a curious scenario if for no other reason then Sp X is not trying to monopolize the market.
It's a question of nat sec.
I don't see the current admin doing that, but I could see the previous one doing it.
DeleteAt this point, it isn't a question of technology - it's a test of production volume and quality control. ULA reminds me of British cars from the 1970's: great ideas, poor execution and even worse quality control.
I remember the jokes about how nobody owns just one Jaguar - everybody needs a second for when the first one is down (some versions said the second was for parts).
Jonathan
SpaceX is pretty open, as far as they can with ITAR, about their technology and processes.
DeleteBut, yes, some attack judge or group could lawfare the snot out of SpaceX and cause huge amounts of issues with them. You know, kind of like all the environmental groups, the Biden administration, Blue Origins, all have done.
I saw a video recently in which Musk was saying they don't file for many patents. For those unfamiliar, the old Silicon Valley idea was that patents generally only give you an advantage for a few months, until someone else figures out a "different enough" way to go around you. Getting on the market first, with as little delay as possible, gets you the most money.
DeleteI don't recall if that was a new or old video, but it's my understanding that's the way they've been operating.
The wealth extracted and spent on this, needs to end. I understand needs for national security. Yet you begin to add up the amounts across all these organizations, it's ludicrous, elements of madness, and out of control as in this secret space force, another secretive unaccountable surveillance entity, just what are they doing, seriously, yeah the world has always been a dangerous place, then again, to these actors it seems they are the hammer and the entire world a nail including we the people, so just who is it they are afraid of here, because I see like close to zero really dangerous actors except between themselves for who controls everything including our humble citizen selves. And I take umbrage at any question to my observations, after all its been an entire lifetime of being stripped mined of my income, my wealth, I created with these hands, which ends up in something I have zero say in, if anything just writing this I am a dangerous and suspect individual to these actors with ultimately within, unlimited power to hurt others. Its insanity in action.
ReplyDelete