5/15/2024 - Written By Caleb Henry
What Quilty Space identified as a risk for Amazon’s Project Kuiper two years ago is now a concern the U.S. military shares: can new rockets scale in time to meet program schedules? Frank Calvelli, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force, who leads space acquisition and integration, wrote a letter to United Launch Alliance’s co-owners, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, expressing concern that their joint venture won’t be able to launch 25 missions the DoD needs by 2027. Calvelli’s letter, submitted May 10, was discovered by the press May 13.
Quilty’s Take: we say Calvelli’s concerns are justified by looking at the early launch cadence of four flagship rockets: Europe’s Ariane 5, Rocket Lab’s Electron, SpaceX’s Falcon 9, and ULA’s own Atlas 5. History shows these rockets averaged less than three launches a year during their first five years, regardless of rocket size, financing, or experience with previous vehicles. ULA needs to triple that historical launch rate for DoD alone, not counting the 38 Vulcan launches the company has for Amazon.
Can ULA clear this hurdle? It will be tough, but there’s reason to believe the answer is yes. In support of Project Kuiper, ULA is doubling its launch infrastructure at Cape Canaveral. The company says it has “nearly 30 launch vehicles” in production right now (how many are the last ~17 Atlas 5s is unclear). ULA said in 2022 it was also adding a second robotic assembly line for Centaur-5 upper stages. Plus, the Centaur-5’s upgraded RL10C-X twin engines feature a marked increase in 3D-printed components, which should accelerate production.
That said, concerns persist around the ability of ULA’s first-stage engine supplier, Blue Origin to deliver a steady stream of BE-4s, a key gating factor for the Vulcan program for years. While Vulcan’s debut flight in January was a “perfect mission,” per ULA CEO Tory Bruno, Blue Origin and ULA will need to ramp production rapidly if they hope to meet customer timing needs.
Throwback: Subscribers curious about our original analysis titled “Quilty Industry Brief - $5+ Billion Reasons Why Amazon Kuiper is Real,” published Wednesday April 6, 2022 can email us for review.
SOURCE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/05/13/pentagon-worried-ula-vulcan-development/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzE1NTcyODAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzE2OTU1MTk5LCJpYXQiOjE3MTU1NzI4MDAsImp0aSI6IjU3MTUyMzg0LTA0OGMtNGI3OC1hMDQ3LTdkMWViMjYwZDcwOCIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS90ZWNobm9sb2d5LzIwMjQvMDUvMTMvcGVudGFnb24td29ycmllZC11bGEtdnVsY2FuLWRldmVsb3BtZW50LyJ9.e1uqlwNZY2foBluJcdD8kJ26crolsdygHG5VtjZgz8I