The Space Force next yr will select launch providers for Phase 3 of the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program. Industry proposals are due Dec. 15.
This next phase of NSSL marks a major evolution in how the Space Force approaches launch, leaning into the industrial market in a way that it had largely avoided up to now.
The Space Force on this procurement is hedging against future uncertainty, attempting to capitalize on industrial launch and construct out for the longer term.
To recap the strategy for Phase 3, it is split into two lanes.
The primary is for more risk-tolerant missions, with upwards of 30 flights projected between 2025 and 2034. Any company with a launch vehicle that meets the minimum performance requirement and has either previously launched to orbit — or has a plan to launch inside 12 months of the Dec. 15 proposal submission — is eligible for this lane.
Firms like ABL Systems, Firefly Aerospace, and Rocket Lab are expected to bid for Lane 1’s indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract, as are the massive launch providers — SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, and possibly Blue Origin.
Lane 2 is open to heavy lift launch providers able to meeting all of the NSSL requirements, including having the ability to deliver payloads to the federal government’s 12 reference orbits. To bid, providers should be certified or have an approved certification Plan.
In 2020, ULA and SpaceX won Phase 2 NSSL launch contracts and are, at present, the one two corporations who’ve been previously certified to fly these high-end missions, albeit ULA did this using its legacy Atlas and Delta launch systems and has not yet achieved certification of its recent Vulcan launch vehicle.
This recent solicitation also opens the door for a possible third vendor, with most analysts expecting Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to compete for this extra slot with its still-in-development Latest Glenn rocket. To qualify, Blue Origin should have a reputable plan to realize certification by October 2026.
Along with launch awards, the three potential awardees for this heavy-lift lane will receive as much as $100 million per yr for Launch Service Support, which pays for the military’s unique launch requirements comparable to bi-coastal ranges, vertical integration, and increased mission assurance requirements.
The Space Force’s embrace of competition throughout the industrial launch market has been a slow and in some ways painful process. Elon Musk’s SpaceX needed to sue the Air Force to interrupt ULA’s monopoly on national security launch and has since change into a dominant provider of reusable launch for the Space Force — becoming an “accidental monopoly,” in line with SpaceNews.
Having multiple launch options will change into much more significant as Space Force plans for Space Access, Mobility, and Logistics (SAML) take shape, potentially creating a requirement for more in-orbit activity.
Phase 3 reflects the range of the launch missions the Space Force needs — high mission assurance, heavy-lift for exquisite satellites in addition to high flight rate for larger numbers of smaller, disaggregated satellites that the Space Development Agency is pursuing.
The strategy shouldn’t be without risks
The Phase 3 RFP allows the Space Force to pick only two providers for Lane 2 if a 3rd is deemed unviable. Nonetheless, there may be an actual risk that just one vendor may very well be viable within the early portion of the contract term. ULA’s Vulcan Centaur is well behind schedule and ULA’s industrial book of business is facing an increasingly competitive market. Should delays affect Blue Origin’s certification of Latest Glenn, SpaceX could be the only company standing, and will find its own ability to deliver each government and industrial launches strained.
Lane 1 is, arguably, an equally necessary step toward greater competition and faster turnaround times for launch — whether solo-payload or via rideshare. This portion of the NSSL procurement also faces risks, including limited numbers of proven providers.
How the Space Force manages the massive providers competing in Lane 2 and likewise participating within the Lane 1 solicitation stays to be seen.
A key query here is whether or not government payload program managers will accept a more risk tolerant approach to launch even when it comes with significant cost savings and greater launch options.
Lower launch prices are especially relevant to an era of proliferated, small satellite constellations. The Space Development Agency has outlined lower-cost launch as an important element of its approach. It stays to be seen whether small and medium class launch vehicles can economically compete with larger launch systems. This can be a particularly interesting query with respect to launching proliferated systems like SDA’s.
Risks beyond contracting
The strategic competition between the USA and China is driving increased demand for launch through requirements for more in-space capability and capability. The necessity for more responsive launch to deal with emergent security situations or requirements (or to switch lost assets) means there’ll should be a greater diversity of competitors.
The Space Force’s strategic considerations are occurring at a time when the industrial and civil demand are also taking off, creating added pressure out there.
The contracting and acquisition a part of national security space are indeed just one a part of the challenge facing the enterprise. Now greater than ever national security launch is intimately connected to the broader industrial launch market and its attendant requirements.
As evidenced by the recent congressional hearing about launch licensing, the executive and bureaucratic infrastructure continues to lag launch demands. While primarily a problem for industrial launch, it’s indicative of the strains that increased launch requirements are placing on structures not designed for the increased cadence of space flight. Accelerating the pace of licensing wouldn’t only profit industry but would even have a net profit for the national security space enterprise.
Congressional attention and interest in NSSL will remain significant. The Space Force cannot afford to get it mistaken.
America’s launch infrastructure is under increasing pressure on account of rising demands. The members of the Space Force’s Space Launch Delta 45 based at Cape Canaveral, Florida, are truly unsung heroes in the case of the launch enterprise supporting not only an increased variety of national security missions but in addition the rapidly growing industrial portfolio.
The Space Launch Delta, its infrastructure, and base resources are used across the launch enterprise, but without sustained and expanded investment, will eventually reach peak saturation, creating an upper limit on what number of launches are possible or feasible.
Infrastructure limits are compounded with increasing concerns about launch site resiliency from natural (and potentially human-caused events). Climate change and rising sea-levels, something about which the Cape could be very aware and dealing to offset, imperils the longer term of the launch site, perhaps not throughout the lifetime of Phase Three, but actually beyond.
Lane 1 does allow for launches from any U.S. site, expanding the number of accessible locations. Increased geopolitical tensions could also lead to overt targeting of our national launch infrastructure, with few fallback options under the current architecture. Diversification is, subsequently, critical.
The impact of supply chain instability on the launch enterprise can’t be ignored either.
Helium, vital for space launch, is under increasing pressure (each literally and figuratively) on account of greater demands on finite resources. The vulnerability of America’s semiconductors supply chain is well-known and efforts are underway to solidify this segment, but it surely stays overwhelmingly reliant on Taiwan and China.
Critical minerals for batteries and electric vehicles are dominated by manufacturing and refining in China, which can be highly exposed to geopolitical instability. In late October, Beijing announced curbs on the export of graphite in response to efforts by Washington to limit China’s access to advanced microelectronics.
How the market evolves can be an open query.
The demand for launches is increasing, and provide overwhelmingly comes from a really small variety of providers. The Space Force is hedging its bets and dealing to be certain that the national security missions are met at a time of increased industrial demand.
There may be, equally, a possibility of a glut of launch capability should the planned mega-constellations beyond Starlink, comparable to Amazon’s Kuiper, fail to realize market viability or should investors’ enthusiasm for space take a downturn.
Phase 4?
It might be too early to take a position about what NSSL Phase 4 will entail. It is going to surely have to deal with changes within the launch market. As with mission assurance categorizations, these scenarios may very well be categorized as gold, silver, and bronze.
Gold: Phase 3 proves to be a hit with Lane 2 delivering the high-end missions and Lane 1 providing a pathway for emerging launch vendors. The marketplace stays healthy and competitive and the federal government’s efforts to secure its own launch services slowly migrate toward truly industrial pricing for reusable rockets.
The $100 million in mission assurance costs per yr are reduced through proven efficiencies and greater data availability, meaning the federal government gets higher value. The federal government embraces a totally blended model of disaggregated large constellations and exquisite capabilities, ensuring sustained demand over the duration of the contract, meaning more competition for more launches.
This scenario would also see the emergence of viable in-space transportation options that promise much more optionality when coupled with low-cost, reusable launch systems.
Silver: The federal government stays the course in Phase 4, making few significant changes. The marketplace experiences some consolidation, however the high-end of launch has three foremost competitors with the Lane 1 seeing a small variety of healthy entrants. The pathway created by NSSL for brand spanking new launch providers stays open, but there are fewer attempts at on-ramping on account of the prices related to constructing out a completely recent launch program and difficult market conditions for capital.
Government demand does increase, but to not the extent advocates hoped, because the pursuit of a blended architecture of proliferated constellations and high-end exquisite capabilities stays stalled, emphasizing the latter over the previous.
Bronze: Phase 3 fails to realize liftoff in the way in which that program proponents expected. Aggressive market consolidation on account of the absence of viable industrial models by some participants, significant delays, or failures (launch or otherwise) leads to a retrenchment of the market. In a worst-case scenario, the federal government, alarmed by these downturns, returns to block-buy models of launch acquisition in search of to own the rockets relatively than use launch as a service.
Despite evidence on the contrary, the federal government stays focused on larger satellites and proliferated constellations are only useful for just a few, select missions. And just one or two successful competitors are delivering services.
Lean further into commercialization
Perhaps the best risk is that the Space Force assumes that it has successfully and totally solved launch.
If anything, the method to develop Phase 3 must proceed well into Phase 4 and beyond. To the Space Force’s credit, the present RFP reflects lessons learned from Phase 2 and a nascent understanding — albeit a hesitant one — of the present market dynamics and forces.
This isn’t any small feat, because the RFP is attempting to anticipate where the launch market shall be.
If anything, the Space Force must lean further into the commercialization and increased competition for space transportation services.
China’s increasingly aggressive posture on orbit and launch tempo means America will need a healthy and robust enterprise to position, and potentially relocate, assets into mission-relevant orbits as quickly as possible. The Space Force cannot do that alone and can’t meet its own requirements by seeing launch as a stand-alone product. Reasonably, it must see it as part of a bigger space transportation architecture supporting an agile and resilient enterprise.