USAF On Road To Competitive Launch Market

Photo: WILLIAM G. HARTENSTEIN

Nov 16, 2011 By Amy Butler - aviation week and space technology

Washington - The U.S. Air Force is kicking off a series of meetings with industry in the coming weeks to outline the path for would-be competitors to break into the typically exclusive U.S. government launch sector, potentially creating a healthier and more cost-effective rocket market in the next decade.

Lt. Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, commander of the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC), has signed off on a first-ever detailed guide for certifying companies seeking to compete for U.S. government launches.

This document, long awaited by potential contenders, will provide a detailed outline of what Pawlikowski says are the “mechanics” that new entrants must follow to gain certification to loft various payload types—from experimental systems that are more risk-tolerant to high-cost monoliths such as the Space-Based Infrared System that require foolproof mission assurance. The guide will not be publicly disseminated, she says, owing to sensitive data protected by the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, she says.

In the coming weeks, SMC plans to hold an industry day for potential entrants. Each must provide a statement of intent—including the company’s reliability, accuracy and selected orbits to which they can launch—to kick off the certification process.

This is an opening for Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and its Falcon 9 to eventually challenge the United Launch Alliance (ULA), a Boeing/Lockheed Martin venture that holds a monopoly over large-class Air Force payload launches. Additionally, an Alliant Techsystems/EADS Astrium team and Orbital Sciences Corp. are expected to compete for work.

Interested companies will work with SMC to develop a certification path. Though the Air Force will help guide the process, the service will not spend money developing the rockets, as it did with the Atlas V and Delta IV a decade ago. “We really want to have [the competitors] leverage as much of their commercial activity as we can,” says Pawlikowski. “The whole idea of having competition is what has got us interested in doing this new-entrant criteria. But we want competitors that have a viable business base.”

ULA was born out of a government-condoned monopoly blending onetime competitors Lockheed Martin, with its Atlas V, and Boeing, with its Delta IV. The Air Force gave both companies at least $500 million to develop their vehicles, and both added their own funds. Though forged at a time when the launch market was thought to be robust enough to support these big players, the two later merged when forecasts turned out to be far rosier than reality.

A decade ago, the service was fostering competition among two U.S. launch titans; now it is forced to sustain the monopoly while also attempting to introduce new players into the market.

The near-term opportunity for new entrants is a contracting vehicle that will be up for grabs as the current Minotaur agreement expires. Pawlikowski says the center is working on developing the request for proposals for the orbital-suborbital small and medium space-lift program (OSP-3) contract, which supports a variety of launch activities requiring various booster sizes.

Once only focused on those two classes, Pawlikowski intends to add a third to OSP-3 specifically for these new entrants; these missions will not be accessible to ULA. “We will target for that contract missions that are more risk-tolerant than our big missions,” she says.

One option proposed by the Pentagon in the fiscal 2012 budget is to set aside $135 million to loft NASA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory, a mission requiring an upper-stage coast and reaching the L1 Earth-Sun Lagrangian point roughly 932,000 mi. away. Lawmakers are split on whether to support the proposal; but if it passes, Pawlikowski plans to compete that mission in fiscal 2012, which concludes next Sept. 30.

While gaining experience is one way to gain certification, there are other options. “The more history they have, obviously the more confidence we will have,” says Pawlikowski. “But if they don’t have a lot of history, then we are more than willing to dig into their technical data” for verification.

The path to certification will vary depending on the company’s record and willingness to allow the Air Force to review its technical data. Ultimately, SMC plans to award indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contracts to multiple vendors in each category of the OSP-3 contract vehicle if there are enough companies certified.

In a parallel path, the Air Force is continuing its effort to reduce the cost of buying ULA rockets. The service came under scrutiny after its fiscal 2012 budget plan suggested negotiating a multiyear buy of 40 rocket cores from ULA over five years. The goal was to stabilize orders for industry, which was intended to reduce risk and generate savings. Government auditors, however, said the strategy was proposed without enough data to bolster a sound rationale.

Since then, the Air Force revised its approach to the Fiscal 2013-17 road map and asked ULA to devise a “cost matrix” that provides a range of options that do not limit the service to a buy of a specific number of vehicles. The range is from 6-10 per year for 3-5 years, according to Maj. Tracy Bunko, an Air Force spokeswoman. “This data will allow the Air Force to balance the rate and commitment decision with our fundamental priorities: operational requirements with emphasis on mission assurance, price, and encouraging competition,” she notes, adding that the Air Force had revised its strategy in advance of the criticism outlined by the Government Accountability Office.

Pawlikowski says her service intends to award this contract to ULA next spring.

Guaranteeing an amount of work for the incumbent would seemingly be at odds with a plan to reduce costs by introducing more choices. But Pawlikowski says the Air Force is trying to get the best out of both efforts—reducing the cost of near-term buys from ULA while also setting up the conditions for competition to further lower prices.

The forthcoming ULA contract is Phase 1 of a two-pronged strategy. “That approach deals with getting a price matrix [from the] vendor to understand where the break point is in quantities,” she says. “Where the tie-in is to our new-entrants [strategy] is that we do not intend to put every launch vehicle that we think we are going to need to buy in the next five years on that block buy. There will be opportunities for additional purchases of [Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle]-class rockets” outside of those outlined for ULA.

These parallel paths are intended to foster, around 2018, a competition with more experienced providers, including ULA and others, as Phase 2 of the strategy. “We are hopeful that by that ’18 timeframe, we will have contenders that are viable, and they won’t be completely blocked out before then,” the general says. “If they become certified earlier than that, we will have these other launches for them to compete for.”