SpaceX beats United Launch Alliance for GPS satellite launch
CAPE CANAVERAL — SpaceX has won a launch of a national security satellite in its first direct competition with United Launch Alliance.
The Air Force on Tuesday said it has awarded SpaceX a $96.5 million contract to launch a Global Positioning System III satellite from Cape Canaveral on a Falcon 9 rocket in February 2019.
SpaceX last year won an $82.7 million contract to launch a GPS III satellite in 2018.
The Air Force had intended for that mission to be the first opened to competition in roughly a decade. But ULA, the Boeing-Lockheed joint venture formed in 2006 that was the only company certified to launch such missions with its Atlas and Delta rockets, decided not to submit a bid.
The Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center, which buys rockets for national security launches, said Tuesday that it had received two bids for the latest mission. ULA had previously confirmed it was a bidder.
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"The competitive award of the GPS III launch services contract to SpaceX directly supports SMC’s mission of delivering resilient and affordable space capabilities to our Nation," said Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves, commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base, in a statement.
ULA had argued that evaluations of the GPS launch bids placed too much emphasis on price, and should give more consideration to bidders' ability to launch successfully and on time.
The bids were submitted weeks after a SpaceX Falcon 9 exploded on its launch pad during a test on Sept. 1, 2016, destroying the rocket and a commercial satellite and severely damaging Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
That mishap followed a Falcon 9 rocket's in-flight failure during a June 2015 launch of International Space Station supplies.
SpaceX won its second GPS satellite launch anyway, apparently as the lowest bidder.
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