The Air Force is reducing the number of competed Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) missions available during fiscal years 2015-2017 from 14 to seven, a top service acquisition official said Wednesday.
Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Director of Space Programs, Maj. Gen. Robert McMurry told reporters at the Pentagon the move is in response to the service delaying its next-generation Global Positioning System (GPS) III constellation. The Defense Department said in its fiscal year 2015 budget request that it wanted to defer two GPS III satellites beyond FY ’19 because older GPS satellites are lasting longer than previously expected.
The Air Force requested roughly $1 billion for GPS III in its budget request. This includes the procurement of the ninth GPS III satellite, advance procurement of the 10th GPS III spacecraft and the development of capabilities for the operational control system (OCX) and the military GPS user equipment. OCX is being developed by Raytheon [RTN] while the GPS III constellation is being built by Lockheed Martin [LMT].
McMurry said five GPS missions, part of the EELV competition, were pushed past FY ’17. Those will still be competed, he said, but the Air Force is deciding how it will approach those competitions. McMurry said they will be part of “phase 2” and that the Air Force is working on that strategy, but he did not go into specifics. Questions to the Air Force were not returned by press time.
McMurry said the other two competed launches were not GPS missions. One had a satellite payload weight growth that the service deemed “unliftable” by potential new entrants. This mission will still be competed, McMurry said. The other, which will not be competed, was moved into United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) bucket of launches, which McMurry said honors ULA’s previous block buy of 36 EELV cores. ULA is currently the sole provider of national security space launches for the federal government.
Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L) Frank Kendall, issued a November 2012 acquisition decision memorandum (ADM) authorizing the Air Force to negotiate with ULA based on an acquisition strategy that planned to procure up to 36 EELV cores across five years (FYs 2013-2017) from ULA and up to an additional 14 if competition was not viable at the time of need. Kendall also instructed the Air Force to “aggressively” introduce a competitive procurement environment in the EELV program by competing as many as 14 cores with initial contract awards as early as FY ’15 for missions that could be flown as early as FY ’17 (Defense Daily; Dec. 3, 2012).
Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) has been leading the charge of new entrants, with the Air Force determining that its Sept. 29 launch of its Falcon 9 v.1.1 launch vehicle would count toward EELV certification. SpaceX must meet certification requirements and perform at least three successful flights of a common launch vehicle configuration to be considered for launching critical national security payloads, the Air Force said Feb. 26. The service is also still assessing Falcon 9 v1.1 launches on Dec. 3 and Jan. 6 for their applicability towards the certification requirements.
SpaceX CEO and Chief Designer Elon Musk and ULA CEO Michael Gass testified to the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee (SAC-D) Wednesday about the Air Force’s national security space launches. Much of the debate centered on whether if competition for national security space launches can be fair to both incumbent ULA and new entrants like SpaceX and if competition is the best way to approach driving down the nine-figure cost of national security space launches. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Ranking Member Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) advocated competition of launches in late 2012 because the U.S. “can’t continue to move forward with such an expensive operation” (Defense Daily; Dec. 6, 2012).
ULA is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing [BA].