The US Air Force (USAF) has awarded SpaceX USD82.7 million to provide satellite launch services, marking the company’s first military launch contract, the Pentagon announced on 27 April.
The contract is for the launch of a GPS III satellite aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in May 2018. SpaceX last year entered the military launch market by certifying the heavy rocket. Legacy provider United Launch Alliance (ULA), a Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture, dropped out of the competition in November after Congress banned the use of the Russian-made RD-180 rocket engine that powers ULA’s Atlas V launch vehicle.
A faction in Congress led by John McCain, the Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, has been seeking a permanent ban on using the RD-180 for military space launch after 2019. However, Congress allowed ULA to keep buying RD-180s from Moscow in fiscal year 2016 (FY 2016) until a domestic alternative becomes available.
The Senate has not yet drafted its FY 2017 legislation, but the House of Representatives is poised to allow the continued purchase and use of the RD-180 again this year. The House Armed Services Committee, in its version of the FY 2017 defence policy bill, would allow for the purchase of 18 RD-180s in FY 2017, double the number funded in FY 2016.
Meanwhile, secretary of defense Ash Carter told the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee on 27 April that the Pentagon is not yet in a position to be able to stop buying the RD-180. He reiterated the department’s position that two domestic launch providers are needed before the USAF can end its reliance on RD-180 engines. “Down the road, we want to have two or more competitive launch service providers that are purely American,” he said. “That’s where we’d like to get to.” He added that the department will have to “hold our noses, buy RD-180s until that situation is created”.
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