United Launch Alliance shoots for higher profile

From the Denver Post: United Launch Alliance shoots for higher profile
For a company that roars into space in a hard-to-miss cloud of smoke and flames, United Launch Alliance has flown under the radar.

The Centennial-based rocket company's payloads draw the attention, not necessarily the "rides" that get them there. For Michael Gass, ULA's chief executive, being the quiet partner is OK — "as long as it says somewhere that United Launch Alliance provided the rocket."

December will mark ULA's fifth anniversary, when former rivals Lockheed Martin and the Boeing Co. formed the 5 0/50 venture.

The market for the companies' rockets was shrinking, and they said the alliance was a way to save the federal government money on launches while providing both Lockheed's Atlas rockets and Boeing's Delta rockets.

To create the venture, about 370 people relocated from the Huntington Beach area of California where Boeing had its Delta facility. About 1,000 people worked on Lockheed's Atlas program at the Waterton Canyon facility in south Jefferson County. ULA also hired about 400 new employees, most from the Denver area.

Part of ULA's lack of visibility outside the aerospace industry may be caused by the rockets' high success rates — 98.7 percent for Delta II and 100 percent for Delta IV and Atlas V.

In the simplest terms, Gass explained what ULA does in a recent interview: "We fight gravity."

It may be rocket science, but ULA adds up to big business in the state.

"ULA is a significant part of the aerospace community in Colorado," said Tom Marsh, co-chairman of the Colorado Space Coalition. "They have about 1,700 to 1,800 employees in Colorado — all high-level kinds of jobs — and another 200 subcontract people. It's a pretty large footprint."

Being low-key "is pretty typical of Lockheed and Boeing and now ULA. But they've been launching 11 to 12 missions a year," said Marsh, who worked on the consolidation before he retired in 2006 as executive vice president of Lockheed Martin Space Systems.

ULA leaders acknowledge that the company has recently been raising its profile.

"This past year has been fairly remarkable. We've averaged one (launch) a month," said Dan Collins, ULA's chief operations officer.

The first half of this year was taken up with national security payloads for the National Reconnaissance Office and the Air Force. The second half is featuring big NASA missions such as the Juno spacecraft in August and the GRAIL lunar twins in September.

ULA's visibility is sure to intensify with the Oct. 27 Delta II launch of NPP, the nation's next-generation satellite built by Ball Aerospace in Boulder, and the late November launch on an Atlas V of the massive Mars Science Laboratory. Lockheed in south Jefferson County built the protective shell and heat shield for the Mars mission's Curiosity rover.

ULA's U.S. competitors include Alliant Tech Systems Inc., also known as ATK, Orbital Sciences Corp. and Space Exploration Technologies, also known as SpaceX. Gass declined to call them competitors, saying, "Our capabilities are very different."

Not everyone is enamored with ULA. Elon Musk, chairman of Tesla Motors and founder of PayPal, Zip2 Corp. and California-based SpaceX, has challenged ULA on several occasions.

Musk's rocket company, which has developed the Falcon rockets and the Dragon capsule, has a contract with NASA to start taking cargo next year to the international space station, but must first do a demonstration mission.

In 2005, when Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin announced they were forming the joint venture, Musk charged in federal court that the venture violated antitrust law.

The court ruled against Musk, saying his SpaceX had not even launched its first rocket and couldn't point to being damaged by the union.

Musk's latest salvo came in late September. At the National Press Club, Musk told reporters that a ULA "monopoly" of space launches would be a mistake.

Sometimes ULA has responded to Musk's comments and sometimes it ignores them, Gass said. This time, ULA responded.

A statement read in part: "If and when SpaceX demonstrates the capability and reliability to support our nation's needs, ULA is confident that acquisition leaders will make the correct decisions for our nation" using procedures for new contractors.

SpaceX's entry into the market "has caused a lot of evaluation of what drives the cost per launch," said Ryan Faith, a research analyst with the Colorado Springs-based Space Foundation. Musk contends his company can do launches cheaper.

The rocket industry — both in the United States and globally — faces very tight budgets, "and it's expected to stay that way for quite a while," Faith said.

On the plus side, Faith said, "ULA has a very good reputation for reliability. But there is the question of whether they can find enough uses for their launch vehicles to bring down launch costs."

Rocket companies such as ULA rely on a large amount of government business, Faith said, "but if the commercial transport of crew and cargo takes off, then that becomes a pretty good market."

Like other federal agencies, NASA's budget is tight and likely will grow tighter. However, NASA has made partnerships with the commercial space industry a priority, awarding millions of dollars in grants in the past few years to facilitate the development of crew and cargo transport to the space station.

ULA aims to tap the commercial market. A major step came in July, when NASA and ULA announced they would work together on possibly certifying the Atlas V as meeting NASA standards to carry people. Gass said that work is progressing.

Atlas V is the choice of Sierra Nevada Space Systems of Louisville to propel its Dream Chaser space plane. Blue Origin of Washington state has made the same pick for its New Shepard spacecraft and Boeing for the CST-100 reusable capsule.

NASA missions still lie ahead, with ULA's Atlas V rockets launching four science and communications missions between 2012 and 2014.

Atlas V, which has launched such missions as NASA's Juno in August, also is the choice of DigitalGlobe of Longmont and GeoEye of Virginia to launch their next-generation Earth- imaging satellites in 2013 and 2014, respectively.

To better coordinate its work, ULA is moving its Colorado employees into a five-building campus in the Panorama business park near Dry Creek Road and Interstate 25.

"For the first time, we will be within 800 yards of each other," Gass said. "I'll be able to look out of my office and see everybody."

Employees have been separated by 20 miles, with 1,100 moving from leased space at Lockheed's Waterton Canyon facility and 600 moving from a nearby building.

The location next to I-25 may bring more attention to United Launch Alliance. To underscore ULA's new high visibility, Gass is toying with the idea of having a rocket image projected onto the side of the building.