By: Julia Seibert
On July 11th, 2024, America’s space nightmare finally came true: a SpaceX Falcon 9, the most prolific rocket in the world, malfunctioned in space. It wasn’t a particularly catastrophic failure – the only victims were the 20 Starlink satellites the rocket was carrying to orbit – but it did lead to Falcon’s indefinite grounding.
The gaping Falcon-shaped hole in the US’s launch scene was a pain in the country’s backside; governmental space missions were in limbo as SpaceX’s meagre competition struggled to catch up. One of these companies is ULA (United Launch Alliance), another local launch giant with a legacy to live up to. Even though its next-gen rocket has yet to hit its stride, the US government is counting on it to provide SpaceX with some much-needed competition. But can ULA give it a run for its money – or is it already too late?
Significance of SpaceX and ULA In the Space Industry
SpaceX is the biggest launch company in the world. Until the recent failure, its Falcon rockets launched roughly every 2.8 days and kept a running streak of over 300 successful missions. In 2023’s fourth quarter, the rockets lifted 382,080 kilograms in spacecraft to orbit: about 318 times what ULA sent up (SpaceX’s closest competitor was China’s state-owned contractor at 40,810 kg). SpaceX is the go-to contractor for NASA missions, launching astronauts, cargo vessels, and space probes; it’s also popular with the US Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). But while it dominates the commercial satellite launch scene too, about two-thirds of the company’s launches carry its own Starlink internet satellites, building up a thousands-strong constellation in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The service is designed to be SpaceX’s money-printing machine as it ramps up plans to colonize Mars.
But long before SpaceX’s near-monopoly, ULA (United Launch Alliance) once ruled the US’s launch scene. The company, a joint venture between heavyweight government contractors Boeing and Lockheed Martin, was established in 2006 to launch US governmental satellites with its Atlas and Delta rocket series. It had little competition at the time, and while SpaceX soon put a stop to its dominance, it remains one of the US government’s most trusted launch providers today. The NRO, Space Force and NASA are frequent customers, and the company has racked up a few commercial launches too. However, its launch rate remains dismal compared to SpaceX, especially now that it’s transitioning from its dinosaur rockets of the past to its new beast, Vulcan Centaur. This rocket isn’t as eye-wateringly expensive as its predecessors and is designed to compete with SpaceX.
Read also: What Does U.S. Space Force Actually Do?
SpaceX vs ULA: Main Differences
SpaceX: The overarching difference between SpaceX and ULA lies in their respective visions, which drive everything they do. For SpaceX, this is to ‘make life multi-planetary’, which founder Elon Musk believes is key to ensuring humanity’s survival as a species were anything to happen to Earth. Step one is bringing humans to Mars, and every last screw at SpaceX is geared toward making this an urgent priority. Falcon 9 provided a way for the company to develop its reusable rocket technology – a key component of Mars missions – while also launching Starlinks for cheap. Starlink, in turn, has the job of breaking into the lucrative telecoms market and finance development of Starship: SpaceX’s Mars rocket. This monster, still in its testing phases, has already eaten billions in investment, and while Musk isn’t exactly strapped for cash, Starlink ensures a reliable flow of money. Almost as a byproduct of the company’s astronomical ambitions, SpaceX managed to corner not just the launch market, but the satellite communications one, too.
ULA: While SpaceX is aiming for Mars, ULA is more focused on Earth. The company’s vision is to ‘harness the potential of space for humanity’, which, the company explains on its website, translates to providing reliable access to space for its launch customers. Since its most loyal customer is the US government, ULA’s technology revolves around its needs. Those include access to far-out orbits like geostationary orbit (GEO), where government satellites like to hang out as they can oversee an entire swathe of the world at once. Vulcan is optimized for such ‘high-energy orbits’, but isn’t reusable like Falcon since such a rapid flight rate isn’t a necessity for its business. Plus, the billions a reusable rocket would cost in development probably trump how much money they’d save during flights. Besides, ULA’s biggest boon ‘is US military policy that says they want to have at least two launch providers, and commercial customers that want to avoid becoming dependent on Elon Musk,’ according to Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (as reported by Defense One). If other new rockets – say, Blue Origin’s New Glenn – can give them a run for their money, they might lose that lead.
History and Background
SpaceX: SpaceX was founded in 2002 after Musk balked at the lack of capable rockets around back then. He’d initially set out to build a greenhouse on Mars to fuel public enthusiasm, only to find NASA had no immediate plans to send humans to Mars. After failing to buy Russian tech for the job, he decided to take a stab at it himself. SpaceX’s first rocket was the Falcon 1, which – after failing three times and almost driving the company to bankruptcy – finally reached orbit in 2008. Sustained by a few juicy checks from NASA, SpaceX moved on to Falcon 9 and the Dragon spacecraft, which it developed at breakneck pace. The company began launching commercial customers in 2012, its popularity further spurred in in the mid-2010s by the rocket’s self-landing, cash-saving boosters. SpaceX quickly hoovered up both US governmental contracts and commercial markets that had previously hinged on Russian and European rockets. In 2020, it cemented its legacy by launching its first astronauts to the ISS, lessening US reliance on the Russian Soyuz rockets. SpaceX managed almost 100 launches in 2023, including the first two test flights of Starship, which it began developing around a decade before.
ULA: Prior to its establishment in 2006, ULA’s two halves – Boeing and Lockheed Martin – were bitter enemies. The commercial launch market of the 1990s and 2000s was saturated by cheaper rockets from Russia and Europe, and the two aerospace veterans competed heavily for US governmental space missions under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) initiative. But instead of driving down prices, the competition bloated them and led to lawsuits, with the government eventually stepping in and forcing the two into the joint venture. This effectively created a monopoly, drawing protests from SpaceX. But soon after the latter began launching for the Department of Defense (DoD) in 2012, ULA realized it needed to step things up. It reshuffled its leadership, and began developing Vulcan, whose capability and costs are on par with SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy. The rocket debuted in January 2024, successfully launching a commercial lunar lander.
Technological Innovations and Contributions
SpaceX: SpaceX is most famous for its self-landing and reusable rocket boosters on the Falcon 9 and Heavy. It first nailed these in 2015, and apart from rival Blue Origin’s suborbital rockets, nobody else has managed the same. It is thanks to these trusty boosters—some of which have flown over 20 missions—that SpaceX singlehandedly transformed the launch industry. Reusing them saves millions per launch and allows the company to fly at an unprecedented rate.
With Starship, the effect could be magnified. This rocket – which consists of the Superheavy booster and Starship spacecraft – is the world’s biggest and most powerful, at over twice the thrust of the Saturn V moon rocket. Both stages are equipped with a methane-guzzling ultra-efficient engine system known as full-flow staged combustion, the likes of which had never flown before. Starship is designed to be fully reusable, with its latest flight tests focusing on landing both stages back on Earth; during the next test, planned for summer 2024, SpaceX aims to catch the booster with a pair of arms – called ‘chopsticks’ – back at its launch tower. This way, the company hopes the system could launch several times a day. But while its rockets get most of the glory, SpaceX’s innovation in other areas isn’t lagging, either. With Starlink, it operates the largest satellite constellation of all time – currently at over 6,000 satellites – and with Dragon, it achieved the first commercial docking to the ISS with a crewed vehicle.
ULA: ULA can trace its technological innovations all the way back to the 1950s when the SM-65 Atlas missile was first launched. Due to the missile’s extremely thin walls – designed to minimize weight – it needed to be pressurized from the inside out, like a balloon. While this was considered unusual, variations of the missile went on to launch the US’s earliest satellites, including its first communications satellite. Atlas rockets based on the missile launched John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth, as well as countless satellites and space probes. The Atlas V, developed by Lockheed Martin before it became part of ULA, is still in service today (though it’s now being retired). ULA’s recently retired Delta series – belonging to Boeing before the joint venture – had similar roots, based on the PGM-17 Thor missile. Its most significant variant was the now-retired Delta IV Heavy; the darling of NRO launches, it was the world’s most powerful operational rocket between the Space Shuttle’s 2011 retirement and the Falcon Heavy’s 2018 debut.
Vulcan, especially its Centaur upper stage, is based on much of this legacy hardware. Its engines, though, are brand new, designed by Blue Origin; they, too, are hopping on the trend of using methane as fuel. Though there are vague plans to reuse the engines in the future, Vulcan is fully expendable. Despite this, ULA managed to slash costs to become cost-competitive with SpaceX’s heavier launches; Vulcan’s bigger payload fairing also appeals to some customers like the NRO, whose satellites might not always fit on a Falcon.
Mission Success and Launched Rockets
SpaceX: SpaceX has launched Falcon 9 352 times with a 99.18% success rate. It performed 310 booster landings, reusing the boosters 284 times. The Falcon Heavy – Falcon 9’s cousin with two extra side boosters – launched 10 times, performing 19 booster landings without a hitch. Starship now has four test flights under its belt, all for a basic variant of the rocket, with future models becoming even taller and more powerful.
ULA: Since its founding in 2006, ULA’s rockets launched 161 times, with a complete success rate. The Delta family launched 68 times (30 for Delta II, 23 times for Medium+, 15 times for Delta IV Heavy), the Atlas V 92, and Vulcan once.
SpaceX vs ULA: Funding and Business Models
SpaceX: SpaceX is privately funded, getting its money from Musk himself, a few private investors (like Fidelity and Alphabet Inc.), and its customers, including various governments, commercial launch customers, and Starlink users. In line with its Martian vision, SpaceX’s entire business model is primed for urgency and efficiency. The company produces as much as possible in-house; it’s at least 85% vertically integrated (according to Eric Berger) to avoid depending on contractors, which often leads to delays and bloated prices. This also helps it spit out Starlink satellites at a dizzying pace. SpaceX is (in)famous for its fly first, fix later development philosophy – otherwise known as blowing up rockets until they work. This often comes at the cost of political and public scrutiny but allows the company to optimize its designs at a rate no competitor can keep up with – and with its resulting near-monopoly, it weathers those storms with ease.
ULA: ULA is also a private company; as a joint venture evenly split between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the parent companies share the investments. Like SpaceX, it also receives a fair share of chunky government contracts, plus a few commercial ones (most notably to launch 47 missions carrying Amazon’s Kuiper internet satellites). But that’s where the similarities end since ULA relies on about 2,000 outside suppliers for its rockets and prefers to iron out the kinks before a flight as opposed to after. There’s likely a political reason for that, too; as both its parent companies are some of the US’s most important contractors and have close ties with the government, they don’t have the freedom to risk failure. This means its development process generally takes longer and has less flexibility in its plans.
Challenges and Controversies
SpaceX: If it wants to get to Mars anytime soon, SpaceX has its work cut out for it. Starship needs to become operational in the next few years to build up Starlink at a higher pace, carry out its NASA lunar missions, and generally hit its stride. This alone involves countless technological challenges to overcome (such as catching and reusing the vehicles) before the headaches of a Mars trip – deadly radiation, lack of oxygen, and logistics, to name a few – can even be considered. In the meantime, SpaceX needs to get Falcon back online and return to its day job of launching into Earth’s orbit to keep its momentum.
But down on Earth, SpaceX faces far more serious controversy. For one, the company now plays a pivotal role in world affairs; not only is the US dependent on it for launches, but its Starlink satellites are proving crucial to conflicts (most famously Russia’s invasion of Ukraine) and remain in the hands of Musk unless they’re paid for by the US government. Then there’s a seemingly endless stream of damning allegations and lawsuits against the company, describing everything from sexual harassment to lax safety regulations to unlawful firings in response to critique of Musk’s polarizing tweets.
ULA: ULA may have attracted a fair few governmental and commercial customers for Vulcan, but the situation is not without its challenges. Vulcan is optimized to launch into GEO, but since the modern space scene is highly centred around Low Earth Orbit (LEO) – with seven times more spacecraft launched there than into GEO – it might have trouble competing on cost efficiency. This snag is compounded by upcoming vehicles from Blue Origin, Stoke Space, and Rocket Lab (among others), all at least partially reusable and, therefore, probably cheaper than Vulcan. And then there’s Starship, which – if it makes good on its promises – could become the most efficient of them all and deal an even bigger blow to ULA’s services.
ULA hasn’t quite racked up SpaceX’s track record of controversy, but the latter accused it of running a monopoly back in the day. Musk has also criticized ULA for receiving ‘a billion dollar annual subsidy’ from the government (as reported by CNBC) that was in place to ensure ‘launch readiness’, though the regular payments stopped in 2020. There have also been reports of ULA throttling its own innovation so as not to compete with its parent companies’ space projects, like the moon rocket Boeing is building for NASA; the company even threatened to fire one of its physicists who’d developed a refuelling system useful to commercial rockets (as reported by Ars Technica).
How Much Does ULA Launch Cost vs SpaceX?
SpaceX: SpaceX doesn’t advertise their launch costs, but Musk stated in 2020 that the marginal cost for a Falcon 9 launch with a reused booster and fairing halves is about $15 million a pop (as reported by Aviation Week). The company saves about $30 million per booster reused (according to figures given by Musk in 2018 and 2020), and $6 million per fairing system. Musk’s estimates are old, but based on SpaceX’s financial records, analysts assume that a Falcon 9 launch can’t cost more than $28 million (as reported by SpaceNews). SpaceX charges its customers at least $62 million per launch of Falcon 9 and around $100 million per Heavy, though the DoD pays more for increased security measures. At Falcon 9’s capacity of 17,500 kg to LEO (if the booster is reused), customers pay at least $3,543 per kilogram (with a true cost of anywhere from $857/kg to $1,600/kg). As for Starship, estimates are even hazier, though Musk recently guessed that its launch cost (not price) could eventually become as low as $2-3 million (as reported by SpaceNews).
ULA: ULA’s current launch costs are unknown, and its prices aren’t the clearest either, with estimates for Atlas V ranging from $100 million to $200 million. As of 2016, customers would pay anywhere from $109 million for the lowest-lift configuration to around $153 million for the most powerful version. At 9,797 to 18,814 kilos to LEO, that comes out to anywhere from $8,185/kg to $11,126/kg. Vulcan, meanwhile, is can lift 27,200kg to LEO with a price of at least $110 million (more for government customers), equaling at least $4,044/kg to LEO.
ULA vs SpaceX: Future Plans and Developments
SpaceX: Now that the Falcon is flying again, SpaceX has a bursting launch manifest ahead of it, with its own Starlink missions, NASA space station trips, and the Polaris program – a series of private astronaut missions and the first to include a private spacewalk – all needing a ride. It’s also under contract to give the ISS the nudge of death in 2030, deorbiting it with a Dragon-style spacecraft. Meanwhile, at least 6,000-ish more Starlinks need to be deployed to complete the first iteration of the constellation, with another 30,000 possible in the future. SpaceX’s other priority is testing Starship and getting it to help launch the satellites – not to mention bringing astronauts to the moon in the mid-2020s and to Mars soon thereafter. This will require bringing to life planned upgrades to the rocket; Starship 3 could stand 150 meters tall and lift over 200 tons to orbit while remaining reusable.
ULA: ULA’s immediate priority is certifying Vulcan for its dearly coveted national security launches, for which one more flight needs to happen. The mission, Cert-2, is set for a September 2024 launch, though its original payload – Sierra Space’s first Dream Chaser spaceplane – is delayed and set to be replaced by a dummy payload. ULA has 16 more launches left with Atlas V before its retirement: eight for Amazon, six for Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, one for the Space Force, and one for telecoms giant Viasat. Nine of those are planned for 2025. As for Vulcan, the company aims for 11 launches in 2025 – all governmental – and hopes to achieve a launch every two weeks in 2026 to accommodate the roughly 70 Vulcans it’s sold so far (as reported by Ars Technica), including 38 for Amazon.
While ULA doesn’t have any plans for complete reusability, it’s considering eventually recovering the Vulcan first stage’s engines or repurposing its Centaur upper stage as a space tug or ‘bodyguard’ against anti-satellite weapons once it’s in space (as reported by Defense One). In the meantime, rumors that Boeing and Lockheed are selling ULA – and that Blue Origin is the most likely buyer – have been making the rounds in the past year, but no definitive moves have been made yet.
Conclusion
SpaceX and ULA may clash on the launch fronts, but at their core, they are fundamentally different. ULA is a business: money goes into one end and a rocket comes out the other, as simple as anything. SpaceX might play by the same rules to get by, but really, it’s aiming to secure its place in history. Hardly a month goes by without Musk reminding his followers on X of Starship’s potential to make life multi-planetary. Which of the two is ultimately superior depends on the kind of principles they are judged by – technological, scientific, political, ethical – and answers would likely vary according to who you ask; for example, the family of a SpaceX employee left comatose due to workplace negligence might not feel as warmly towards the company as the starry-eyed futurist. But there’s not much time to mull over these things. Both companies are gearing up their plans – and whether you’re a fan or not, they’ll soon be coming to an orbit near you.
Read also: SpaceX vs Blue Origin – A Detailed Comparison in 2024
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