- SpaceX gets 28 missions worth around $ 5.9 billion
- ULA gets 19 missions worth around $ 5.4 billion
- Blue Origin is worth around seven missions
That amounts to a 60-40 split between SpaceX and ULA for the most part of the missions. In the competition, military officials set aside seven extra missions to launch with a third provider, so that a new player can get a foothold in the market. The Space Force reserves the right to trace missions of again between the three providers if one of them gets into trouble.
The Pentagon confirmed that an unnamed fourth company also submitted a proposal, but was not selected for phase 3.
Completed to the nearest million, the contract with SpaceX is on average of $ 212 million per launch. For Ula it is $ 282 million and the price of Blue Origin is $ 341 million per launch. But take these figures carefully. The contracts include many bells and whistles, which they praise higher than what a commercial customer could pay.
According to the Pentagon, the contracts “launch services, mission unique services, missionary acceleration, fast response/anomaly resolution, special studies, support for launch, fleet surveillance and early integration studies/mission analysis.”
In essence, the Space Force pays a premium for all three launch providers for planning priority, tailor -made solutions and access to data from each flight of the rocket of each company, among other things.
New Glenn lives away on his debut flight.
Credit: Blue Origin
“Winning 60% of the missions may sound generous, but the reality is that all SpaceX competitors can currently deliver the other 40%!,” Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, posted on X. “I hope they succeed, but they are not there yet.”
This is true if you look at the flying interest of every company. SpaceX has launched Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy Rockets 140 times in the last 365 days. These are the flight-to-consult Rockets SpaceX that will be used for its share in the space missions.
