U.S. Sen. John McCain blasted the company that lifts national security satellites to space, saying it has made “troubling and specious claims” about its sudden inability to participate in a recent competition to launch an Air Force satellite.
In a letter sent Tuesday to defense Secretary Ashton Carter, McCain, R-Arizona, once again took aim at Centennial-based United Launch Alliance, the joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, which for a decade held a monopoly on Pentagon and intelligence community launches.
Last month, — the first time it would have faced competition — for a variety of reasons. That means SpaceX, the only other company certified by the Pentagon to launch payloads for national security agencies, would walk away with the lucrative contract.
ULA said it was prevented from bidding on the contract because of that powers its Atlas V rocket. Congress imposed the limit in response to the escalating tension with Russia over that nation’s actions in Ukraine.
ULA has said the RD-180s it has in stock have been assigned to other missions and were no longer available for Pentagon launches.
McCain said he found that claim “especially dubious.”
“Instead of setting those engines aside for national security launches, ULA rushed to assign them to non-national security launches that are unrestricted in their use of Russian engines,” McCain wrote.
He accused ULA of trying to artificially create a need for relief from the restrictions and “subvert the authorization process.”
A ULA spokesperson declined to comment Wednesday.
For years, ULA had a monopoly on the launches, a lucrative and steady source of revenue for two of the biggest defense contractors in the world.
Then SpaceX came along, and the hard-charging company founded by tech billionaire Elon Musk said it could provide the launches for far less.
Musk eventually sued the Air Force, saying that SpaceX should be allowed to compete for the business. Ultimately, the parties settled, and the Air Force certified the company’s Falcon 9 rocket for the launches. The Air Force contract would have been the first time that SpaceX would have challenged ULA.
