United Launch Alliance

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United Launch Alliance

Type	Private
Founded	December 1, 2006
Headquarters	Centennial, Colorado
Key people	Michael C. Gass: CEO Daniel J. Collins: COO
Industry	Aerospace
Products	Atlas V, Delta II, Delta IV
Revenue	unknown
Employees	3,800
Website	United Launch Alliance

United Launch Alliance (ULA) is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing formed in December 2006. ULA combines the teams at these companies which provide spacecraft launch services to the government of the United States. U.S. government launch customers include both the Department of Defense and NASA, as well as other organizations.

Atlas and Delta are families of expendable launch systems. These launch systems have been used for more than 50 years to carry a variety of payloads including weather, telecommunications and national security satellites, as well as deep space and interplanetary exploration missions in support of scientific research.

ULA uses three families of launch vehicles – Delta II, Delta IV and Atlas V – to support U.S. space initiatives.

ULA program management, engineering, test and mission support functions are headquartered in Denver, Colo. Manufacturing, assembly and integration operations are located at Decatur, Alabama, and Harlingen, Texas. Launch operations are located at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, and at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.^[1]

History

Boeing and Lockheed Martin announced their intent to form the United Launch Alliance joint venture on May 2, 2005. The joint venture merges the production of both of their government space launch services into one central plant in Decatur, Alabama and all engineering into another central plant in Littleton, Colorado. Boeing Integrated Defense Systems Delta IV and Lockheed Martin Space Systems Atlas V are both launchers developed for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program intended to provide the United States government with competitively priced private spaceflight and assured access to space.

SpaceX challenged the antitrust legality of the launch services monopoly on October 23, 2005. SpaceX is interested in competing for government launch contracts with the Falcon 9 rocket. On January 7, 2006 the Department of Defense gave preliminary approval to the United Launch Alliance while the Federal Trade Commission had yet to issue a final decision.^{[citation needed][dated info]}

In September 2006, the Pentagon renewed their support for a United Launch Alliance. The Pentagon announced their support to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), who gave their anti-trust clearance on October 3, 2006.^{[citation needed]}

The joint venture received final approval from the Federal Trade Commission and began operations on December 1, 2006. ULA is expected to bring an estimated 230 jobs to the Decatur Metropolitan Area.^{[citation needed][dated info]}

On June 15, 2007, the engine in the Centaur upper stage of a ULA-launched Atlas V shut down early, leaving its payload – a pair of NRO L-30 ocean surveillance satellites – in a lower than intended orbit.^[2] The anomaly caused delays to forthcoming Atlas V and Delta IV launches, due to the common RL-10 upper stage engines. The fault was traced to a new type of valve being used in place of an older component which had gone out of production. To resolve the problem, the older design will be put back into production, and in the meantime, surplus valves from the original production run will be used.

Launches

The first launch conducted by ULA was of a Delta II, flying from Vandenberg Air Force Base on December 14, 2006.^[3] The rocket carried the USA 193 satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office. This satellite failed shortly after launch and was intentionally destroyed on February 21, 2008 by an SM-3 missile fired from the Ticonderoga class cruiser USS Lake Erie.^[4]

See also

Spaceflight portal

• Atlas V
• Boeing
• Delta II
• Delta IV
• Lockheed Martin
• United Space Alliance

References

External links

• United Launch Alliance
• Boeing, Lockheed Martin to Form Launch Services Joint Venture
• Full Summons and Complaint by SpaceX against Boeing Company and Lockheed Martin Corporation
• FTC gives prelimanary clearance to United Launch Alliance
• United Launch Alliance begins Operations