The fiscal year 2016 defense authorization bill approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) eliminates the reported $1 billion launch capability contract with United Launch Alliance (ULA) moving forward, but contains an exemption for a future launch capability contract to be awarded if a Delta IV launch is necessary.
The committee, in the report accompanying the bill, recommends a provision that would prohibit the defense secretary from awarding or renewing a contract or maintaining a separate contract line item for the procurement of property or services for space launch capabilities under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program, known as EELV Launch Capability (ELC). The Air Force, since 2005, has awarded an ELC contract to ULA to augment a fragile industrial base. ULA has been the sole provider of national security space launches since 2005, when it was founded as a joint venture of Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Boeing [BA].
SASC said it realizes that a limited need for launch capability funding could arise to meet certain heavy launch requirements that are at significant near-term risk, since ULA announced earlier this year it would retire the Delta IV in the 2018-2019 timeframe because it didn’t believe the rocket would be competitive on an open market (Defense Daily, March 18). The Delta IV is currently the only rocket certified to carry “heavy lift” national security payloads. Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX), which was certified May 26 to carry national security satellites, is developing a Falcon Heavy rocket to carry such payloads, but it has yet to be certified.
Citing the “unique role” of the Delta IV in meeting national security space requirements, SASC included a national security waiver as long as the contract does not support space launch activities using rocket engines designed or manufactured in Russia, like the RD-180 that powers ULA’s Atlas V rocket and helps launch a majority of national security payloads. The elimination of ELC also does not apply to Russian rocket engines already ordered, such as the 2013 “block buy,” but this exemption expires Sept. 30, 2019. This means ELC contract payments will continue to be paid for launches using the RD-180 that have already been ordered.
The bill also reallocates the cost share of the ELC between the Air Force and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) for the remaining years of the contract through 2019, requiring that the Air Force request for ELC funding bear the same ratio to the total number of launch cores to be procured under ELC. SASC believes the current ratio of 75 percent costs to the Air Force and 25 percent to the NRO unfairly burdens the Air Force.
The committee said the Air Force’s FY ’16 request of five launch cores represents just 56 percent of the total number of cores requested. In FY ’17, SASC said, while the NRO projects a request of seven cores, the Air Force projects a request of five cores–42 percent of the total buy.
Rep. Jim Cooper (R-Tenn.) said the week of March 16 in a HASC hearing on space launch that the ELC contract was worth about $1 billion annually (Defense Daily, March 26).