Blue Origin Files Pre-award Protest Over USAF Launcher Competition
Defense News reports that Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has filed a pre-award protest with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) over the U.S. Air Force’s competition for new launch contracts.
Blue Origin is arguing that the current structure of the launch service provider competition may favor incumbents and will perpetuate a duopoly, according to a Blue Origin fact sheet obtained by Defense News.
“As drafted, the LSP [launch service provider] RFP [request for proposals] includes evaluation criteria that are ambiguous and fail to comply with federal procurement statutes and regulations. This subjectivity of the criteria makes it impossible to accurately respond to the RFP,” the fact sheet states.
“To ensure the process maximizes value for the American taxpayer and protects U.S. national security interests in space, it is essential that the Air Force structure the LSP RFP in a way that fosters a fair and level playing field for new entrants.”
The Air Force released a solicitation for the second phase of the LSP competition in May and intends to downselect to two launch providers in 2020. SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman are all slated to vie for the series of contracts, which will be awarded over 2020 to 2024 for launches scheduled through 2027.
14 responses to “Blue Origin Files Pre-award Protest Over USAF Launcher Competition”
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Don’t misunderstand, I’m confident that they *will* eventually do so, and I utterly do not want to sound like one of the hard-core (I’m a soft-core) SpaceX fanboys, for whom anything that ain’t Musk ain’t crap…
…but wouldn’t this sound more credible, coming from someone that had actually demonstrated at least one orbital launch, first?
Ditto.
Things aren’t quite that clear-cut.
ULA’s and NGIS’s proposed vehicles are also, at the moment, in the same “paper rocket” category as Blue’s New Glenn.
In terms of recent experience designing orbit-capable vehicles, NGIS is ahead of both ULA and Blue as it has done several such over the last couple decades and its largest – Antares – is also its most recent such effort.
Blue has, of course, never done such a design before and even ULA didn’t actually design Atlas V or Delta IV, LockMart and Boeing did, respectively, before their rocket businesses were combined. That was a long time ago. Vulcan is ULA’s first orbital-class rocket design done on its own resources.
In the interim, much has happened. Given how many former ULA staffers have moved to Blue since its founding, and the fact that Blue has also drawn staff from Aerojet-Rocketdyne, it is hardly obvious that Blue is the least credible of the three non-SpaceX participants in this LSA horse race. Blue, after all, is developing the engine both it and ULA will use to power their respective brainchildren.
And, except as a rather obvious and heavy-handed way of keeping ULA solvent by main force, it is impossible to see any justification for USAF’s obdurate insistence on cutting its launch suppliers to two before three of the four prospects have actually produced candidate vehicles – certainly not if the goal is actually to enhance competition. But, in my view, that isn’t actually the goal.
To SpaceX’s credit, they did not sue until they were going to orbit. Da-Eagle’s points are valid, but I have no problem with the USAF pushing Blue around a bit given the jump in rocket capability they are making between N. Sheppard and N. Glenn.
Unlike you, I don’t at all approve of what’s going on, but I also don’t think it’s likely to matter very much in the long term.
The fix is very obviously already long since in for ULA to be one of the two LSA Phase 2 selectees. So ULA will build Vulcan and fly it for at least as long as the upcoming contract lasts.
Blue, meanwhile, is gong to finish New Glenn whether or not whatever is left of the half-billion it got from Uncle Sam last year goes poof. Then, with a long-since working rocket, it will elbow its way onto the NSSL approved vendor list when the about-to-be-awarded contracts expire.
At that time, I fully expect USAF – if it hasn’t yet been supplanted as the decider by a stand-alone Space Force – to suddenly get religion where more than two vendors is concerned and still try to throw ULA enough business to keep it alive, if not exactly in robust and ruddy good health. I don’t expect such an effort to succeed. The futures of Vulcan Mk2, with the notionally reusable engine pod, and of ACES will most likely continue to be just that – never-built futures.
At some point – most likely as soon as the process to award the next LSA contract gins up – I think ULA’s next-gen expendable will become unsupportable at all given the availability of two entirely distinct lines of mostly reusable alternatives from Blue and SpaceX. At that point, I think the decision will be made to take ULA off life support and let it die peacefully in its sleep.
Of course the fix is in. The winners will probably be Grumman to keep the solids infrastructure going, and ULA to keep ULA alive for the sake of ULA. Space X can survive on it’s own being the most mature commercially, and Blue will be kept alive because they’ll be a major subcontractor to ULA’s vehicle. Everybody wins.
We live in a time when the launch contracts might have looked like this. The USAF will purchase and operate any reusable launch vehicles available on the market and do any depot refurb at the contractors facility with the boosters purchased and owned by the USAF in much the same way they own a C-130. For expendable launches the USAF will simply contract those launches on a per launch basis.
“The winners will probably be Grumman to keep the solids infrastructure going, and ULA to keep ULA alive for the sake of ULA.”
That would take some serious balls, and I don’t think it would stand. Not saying you’re wrong though
The upcoming Minuteman III replacement project, for which NorGrum is now the only bidder, will see to keeping NorGrum in tea and skittles. I don’t think it has a prayer of getting any LSA award.
Revising launch contracting along aircraft purchase lines makes no sense at all at this late date. For one thing, USAF is probably only a year or less away from being shut out of consequential decision-making about space anyway. That’ll be Space Force’s job once it’s stood up.
Given that the rockets will all be operated from pretty much two places by contractors who know their craft, getting SF personnel involved at that level makes little sense – at least for now. That may change once SHS – and its potential successors and competitors – enable build-out of orbital and cis-lunar military facilities that require extended human presence in space.
We shall see. I would not be surprised if that ICBM-X price quote depends on large SRB’s supplementing the solids ecosystem. Right now that’s SLS and Omega. Should they both fail, I expect the price of ICBM-X to jump by a lot. Obviously the pros of Omega compared to the world of liquid launch vehicles are slim (they’re negative IMO). Omega has made it this far in my opinion because it pads the solids industrial base with work. Omega is not about establishing a market driven launch vehicle tuned to market needs.
yeah I am sort of a Blue guy but its ridiculous to think that Blue is going to get more then the engine deal with Vulcan out of this…they just have no orbital experience to talk about
SpaceX got wise and bid their operating rocket and Vulcan…it will fly…its got to much expertise behind it…
As noted, Blue probably has at least as many people with relevant orbital vehicle experience as ULA does – maybe more by this time. Tory Bruno, after all, was talking about “all the familiar faces” in Kent over four years ago. And since then, ULA has done a lot of laying off and Blue has done even more hiring. Heritage adheres to companies, but knowledge and experience adhere to humans and humans are quite portable when they want to be.
And knowledge and experience will beat heritage every time. Boeing has oodles of heritage, much of it acquired, but its performance to date with SLS doesn’t suggest that it has much knowledge and experience. That has mostly died off, retired or taken hikes to greener pastures leaving behind the shell of heritage and not much else.
Vulcan may well fly. It does have some expertise behind it. Let’s hope it has enough because I think “too much” is no longer an option.
My opinion on Blue is that they need to demonstrate some go-git-it. I’m sure they have the capability. I’m not so sure they have the drive from the top. Pointing out that other legacy contractors are in an even worse position is not a sufficient argument for them. There is such a thing as hastening too slowly.
The down select to two providers is the problem as I see it. Blue may have a worlds beating machine in a year or three, and they may not. Same with the SpaceX Starship. Same with other players I’m not aware of or considering right now. Down select might just be stasis select in an industry that might start moving faster than they expect.
I agree that less Gradatim and more Ferociter seems to be in order. But Blue is much mingier with news than other rocket companies so it’s difficult to be sure. The recent revelation that BE-4 is now test-firing at full chat suggests that two years from now both ULA and Blue will have flyable rockets powered by same.
The downselect-to-two thing is an obvious sop to ULA. And your point about stasis is certainly on-point. But an institutional prejudice in favor of assuming that things will change slowly if at all is perfectly understandable in a service whose oldest bomber is nearing 70 and whose youngest is nearing 30. Not to mention whose latest fighter has been in development for nearly a quarter-century.
But Space Force is coming and it won’t be bringing over USAF’s dysfunctional and corrupt procurement drones when it splits off. My guess is that as little as two years hence, the whole LSA thing might well be in for a thoroughgoing review and facelift.
Regarding the Air Force. Any entity that spends a quarter century developing anything is going to get screwed over the first time they encounter motivated up to date opposition. In warfighting, that will be a grim screwing over.Launcher acquisition is just a symptom of the thing that seriously worries me..