“Our rocket has a unique niche within this market,” said Bruno. “There are really two types of missions from the position of the rocket. There are one where you end up in Leo, and there are one where you lose weight in higher jobs. You design your rockets for that. It does not mean that we cannot drop off in Leo, it does not mean [SpaceX] I cannot deposit in a job in a higher energy, but we are more efficient in that because we have designed for that. “
There is some truth in that argument. The upper stage of the Vulcan Rocket, called the Centaur V, burns liquid hydrogen fuel with better fuel efficiency than the engine -based engine at the top stage of SpaceX. And SpaceX has to use the more expensive Falcon Heavy Rocket for the most demanding missions, which spends the core booster of the rocket to devote more driving gas to the payload in a job.
Since the beginning of 2023, SpaceX has been launched with a speed that is almost 34 times higher than United Launch Alliance, but ULA has more experience with energy -rich missions, with more complex maneuvers to place military payloads directly in Geosynchron's lane and sometimes give several payloads at various locations in the geosynchon.
This is one of the most challenging mission profiles for every rocket, which requires a high -quality top stage, such as Vulcan's Centaur V, able to sail through the space for eight or more hours.
SpaceX has flown a long -lasting version of its upper stage on various missions by adding an extensive missing kit. This gives the rocket longer battery life and an adapted tire of thermal paint to ensure that the kerosene fuel does not freeze in the cold environment of the room.
A SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket rolls to the launch platform in Florida in June 2024. The upper stage of the rocket has a strip of gray thermal paint to keep floating gases at the right temperature for a long -term cruise through the room.
Credit: SpaceX
On the other hand, the vast majority of SpaceX's missions focus on a low-earth course, where Falcon 9 Rockets Starlink Internet satellites implement, send crews and charge to the international space station and regularly launch Rideshare missions for multiple pays. These launches maximize the efficiency of the Falcon 9 with booster recovery and reuse. SpaceX is competent and productive with these missions and launches them every few days. Launching, land, repeat.
“They are usually more efficient in the Leo-drop-offs, I am honest about that,” said Bruno. “That means that there is a competitive space in the middle, and then there are kind of these final cases. So we continue to win when it is far in our space, they will win when it is in theirs, and then in the middle it is kind of a shot for a certain mission.”
Recent history seems to support Bruno's hypothesis. Last year, SpaceX and ULA from Head-Head competed for nine specific launch contracts or task assignments, in a different Space Force competition. The launches will place national security satellites in a job in the low earth and SpaceX won all nine of them. Since 2020, ULA has won Meer Space Force Taak Orders than SpaceX for energy-rich missions, although the opposite was true in the Tour of this year's launch orders.
