Space The United Launch Alliance Venture

Since 2005, two of the USA largest space-involved firms, The Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. teamed up to build a joint venture, which was named 'United Launch Alliance'. The alliance of both firms was to become the sole providers of the launch services to be used by the U.S. Air Force, NASA and other government agencies! United Launch Alliance is based in Denver, Co. and structured as a 50-50 venture. It combines services which were until then provided separately by Boeing's integrated defense division and Lockheed's space systems company for launches of the Boeing Delta and Lockheed Atlas rockets. Assembly work was to be done primarily at Boeing's manufacturing and assembly facility in Decatur, Ala., with support from launch facilities operated by the companies at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Fla. and the Vandenberg AFB, Calif. The joint venture had, at the date of its creation, a total of 3,800 total employees at sites in Colorado, Alabama, Florida, California and Texas

The joint venture expanded into a group elaborating launcher selves. Lockheed Martin Atlas V now is made jointly with Boeing by the United Launch Alliance as it has become the joint venture's heavy workhorse launcher. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), for example, is a customer of the United Launch Alliance Atlas V launcher, like is the NRO, or 'National Reconnaissance Office,' the Chantilly, Va.-based agency which manages the design, construction and operation of the U.S. network of intelligence-gathering spy satellites. NRO reconnoissance missions launch atop either Atlas 5 or Delta 4 Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELV). The Atlas 5 rocket stands 191.2 feet (58.3 meters) tall and includes one main booster powered by the RD AMROSS RD-180 engine as its Centaur upper stage is powered by a single Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne RL10A-4 engine. Such launches are performed, for example, from the Space Launch Complex-41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, in Florida, which is the company's launch facility. Boeing's Delta and Lockheed Martin's Atlas rockets are continuing to be available of their own for civilian, or military space missions. Both lines of rockets however are now integrated into the United Launch Alliance venture. By the beginning of their union, Boeing and Lockheed Martin had worked upon versions of the so-called Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, or EELV, in collaboration with the U.S. Air Force as such rockets like the Delta 4 rockets or Atlas 5 boosters are part of that program. Lockheed offers commercial Atlas launch services through its subsidiary, Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services, as Boeing defense and space business services are based in St. Louis, Mi.

The ULA since 2012 is moving to certifying its Atlas V rocket for crewed missions. United Launch Alliance, during the lull after the Space Shuttle retirment, uses the Russian RD-180 engine on its Atlas 5 launch vehicle. U.S. authorities have forbidden such launchers to be used for the military, leaving company SpaceX as the sole supplier as a debate is pending by early 2016 about using such engines until a equally capable American-made space launch vehicle can be used a some Russian officials in Russia's space and defense industry would personally profit from the sales of the RD-180. United Launch Alliance turned Russian space agency RD-180 rockets engines best buyers, to power the Atlas V rocket. However, spurred by a ban on the RD-180 that will go into effect in 2022, ULA plans to adopt either Blue Origin’s BE4 or Aerojet Rocketdyne’s AR1 to power its new Vulcan launcher. The Next Generation Launch System (NGLS) all American-made rocket Vulcan, will make launch services more affordable and accessible, and bringing together decades of ULA’s reliable Atlas and Delta experience, those rocket being eventually phased out