Pentagon picks Blue Origin, SpaceX, ULA in $5.6 billion rocket program

The Pentagon introduced the primary profitable bidders in its rocket launch contract sweepstakes on Thursday, with Jeff Bezos‘ Blue Origin grabbing a spot for the primary time.

Blue Origin’s profitable bid got here as a part of contracts awarded underneath the Pentagon’s $5.6 billion National Security Space Launch program.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX and United Launch Alliance – also called ULA, the three way partnership of Lockheed Martin and Boeing – have been additionally awarded contracts as a part of the multi-year third part of the NSSL program.

Blue Origin, SpaceX, and ULA didn’t instantly reply to CNBC requests for remark.

Underneath this system, often called NSSL Section 3 Lane 1, the trio of corporations might be eligible to compete for contracts by mid-2029.

ULA and SpaceX have already been competing for contracts underneath the earlier Section 2 version of NSSL: In total, over five years of Phase 2 launch orders, the army assigned ULA with 26 missions price $3.1 billion, whereas SpaceX received 22 missions price $2.5 billion.

Blue Origin, in addition to Northrop Grumman, missed out on Section 2 when the Pentagon selected ULA and SpaceX for the program in August 2020.

However with Section 3, the U.S. army is elevating the stakes — and widening the sector — on a high-profile competitors for House Pressure mission contracts. Phase 3 is expected to see 90 rocket launch orders in whole, with a cut up strategy of classes Lane 1 and Lane 2 to permit much more corporations to bid.

House Pressure outlined a “mutual fund” strategy to buying launches from corporations underneath Section 3: The army department cut up this system into two lanes, in an effort to have one which options three corporations fulfilling essentially the most demanding and costly missions, and the opposite that