The lucrative contracts that the U.S. Air Force recently gave to United Launch Alliance do not sit well with SpaceX founder Elon Musk. Musk's company is filing a lawsuit against the Air Force, charging that the contracts were unjustified and that the Air Force gave too little consideration to other qualified competitors.
United Launch Alliance is a partnership between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The Air Force had awarded the group contracts last December for the use of its Delta 4 and Atlas 5 rockets to launch military satellites into space. SpaceX is filing its lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. The official protest document will be posted online April 28 at www.freedomtolaunch.com, according to a company statement.
United Launch Alliance has a long track record of military-related projects, having already completed 70 launches under the Air Force's Electronic Expendable Launch Vehicles program. The December contract guaranteed that the Air Force would use United Launch rockets for 36 upcoming missions while leaving another 14 missions open to competition.
Musk's argument is that all of the missions should be open to competition. He pointed out in a press conference that SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, which has been launching commercial satellites into space; and the SpaceX Dragon cargo ship, which NASA is now using to convey crews and cargo to the International Space Station; could transport the same satellites for a quarter of the cost of the Delta or Atlas rockets.
"It just seems odd that if our vehicles are good enough for NASA and supporting a $100 billion space station, and it's good enough for launching NASA science satellites, for launching complex commercial geostationary satellites … there's no reasonable basis for it not being capable of launching something quite simple like a (military navigation) satellite," said Musk in a statement.
Musk made similar statements in March during a Senate hearing, and the Air Force responded at the time by pointing out the high stakes of military satellite launches—i.e., best to go with a vendor that the military knows well and fully trusts. Gen. William Shelton, head of the Air Force Space Command, had said in a March presentation to the National Space Club's Florida chapter that the loss of a space station resupply mission, such as those that SpaceX now undertakes "doesn't begin to represent the catastrophic loss … like a national security payload failure would."
Compared to United Launch Alliance, SpaceX's launch portfolio is somewhat thin. The private spaceflight company has launched only nine Falcon 9 rockets thus far.
Source : http://www.sciencerecorder.com/news/spacex-sues-charges-u-s-air-force-with-rocket-favoritism/
