Elon Musk and SpaceX have won round 1 of their battle against Lockheed-Boeing's United Launch Alliance (ULA). A US federal court has granted the company an injunction to prevent the ULA from purchasing rockets made in Russia.
Earlier this week, SpaceX announced that they would be taking legal action against the awarding of lucrative US Air Force contract to the ULA for launching defense related payloads into space. The company said that they filed the lawsuit with the intent to make the bidding for future defense space contracts more open to competition. In the first salvo of the lawsuit, Federal Judge Susan G. Braden issued the injunction against the ULA.
"This legal action seeks to shine a spotlight on an issue that has gone unchecked since 2006, when the ULA monopoly was formed-the lack of competition in the national security launch market," says SpaceX in a press release.
One of the primary criticisms lobbed against the ULA contract was that the joint Lockheed and Boeing venture planned to use rocket engines made in Russia for some of the launches in lieu of domestically made rockets. SpaceX CEO Musk said that using rockets built in Russia may be in violation of the current economic sanctions against Russia in response to the country's latest aggressive dealings with Ukraine.
Musk further stated that ULA's plans may directly benefit Russian deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, who was specifically named in the sanctions brought forth by the US government. Rogozin is also the head of the Russian defense industry.
The contract is worth billions of dollars and involves up to 36 rocket engines. While the ULA won the bid, Musk says that his company could have offered the government a better deal. In total, Musk says that SpaceX could have helped the US government save up to $1 billion. The contract in question involves the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program of the US Air Force, which will be used to launch a variety of defense related payloads into space. Experts say that the launches will involve several intelligence satellites and other satellites to increase the operational awareness of the Air Force.
Compared to NASA space programs, the relatively lesser known EELV program doesn't get the same amount of public attention. The program was started back in the mid-90s with the goal of reducing the operational costs involved with defense related space launches by around 25 to 50 percent. However, SpaceX says that over the years, the costs associated with Air Force space launches has not gone down. Moreover, Musk says that the exact opposite happened and costs have skyrocketed since the program was launched. However, the ULA maintains that it is the only government certified organization that can continue to meet the requirements of the Air Force's space launch program.
