A space launch consultant believes new United Launch Alliance (ULA) CEO Tory Bruno’s Silicon Valley experience and entrepreneurial approach could save the company as it leaves an era of a monopoly advantage and enters an era of competition.
Charles Miller, president of launch consulting company NextGen Space LLC, told Defense Daily Friday he believes ULA has everything it needs to be a very innovative company. Miller said ULA has brilliant technical people, world-leading technology and launch experience. Miller also spent three years as NASA senior adviser for commercial space and 11 years as CEO and president of Constellation Services International.
“The problem was…ULA’s corporate parents, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, were betting SpaceX was going to bail, and they were wrong,” Miller said about upstart launch provider Space Exploration Technologies Corp., which declined to comment for this story. “SpaceX has shook up the industry and defied all expectations and now ULA needs to adapt or die.”
Bruno joined ULA from Lockheed Martin [LMT], where he was most recently vice president and general manager of strategic and missile defense systems, based in Sunnyvale, Calif. According to Bruno’s LinkedIn profile, he spent 30 years in this position. Bruno immediately replaces Michael Gass, who has served as president and CEO since ULA’s joint venture founding in 2006.
Miller said the Silicon Valley difference is in the culture, approach and attitude toward innovation in space systems. As opposed to a traditional aerospace contractor bringing a “slow and plodding” approach, Miller said Bruno’s Silicon Valley background brings speed to the decision-making table. Miller also said ULA needs to listen more to brilliant, innovative people within the company he called “intrapraneurs.”
“(ULA) could have picked somebody else that had a more staid, traditional, old-school aerospace approach and that would have been their death,” Miller said. “There are great people within these companies…and they are usually ignored until the company says ‘OK, we need to do something different.’ This is a case where Tory Bruno is one of those guys.”
Miller said he believed Lockheed Martin and Boeing [BA] treated ULA like a “cash cow,” sending back hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from lucrative Defense Department launch contracts, as opposed to what ULA invested on innovation, which Miller called “peanuts.” But, Miller said, if that approach doesn’t change, Bruno’s hiring could be for naught.
ULA is entering the fight for its life as it and SpaceX are locked in a bitter feud for DoD’s roughly $9.5 billion launch market over the next five years. This does not include the classified amount the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) spends on space launch, which the Air Force provides.
Since its founding with Justice Department blessing in 2006, ULA has enjoyed its status as the nation’s only national security launch provider. The company was recently awarded nearly $1.5 billion from the Air Force for 36 launch cores as part of the service’s Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program.