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ULA Concedes GPS Launch Competition To SpaceX (spacenews.com)
schwit1 writes: ULA has decided against bidding on a military GPS launch contract, leaving the field clear for SpaceX. "ULA, which for the past decade has launched nearly every U.S. national security satellite, said Nov. 16 it did not submit a bid to launch a GPS 3 satellite for the Air Force in 2018 in part because it does not expect to have an Atlas 5 rocket available for the mission. ULA has been pushing for relief from legislation Congress passed roughly a year ago requiring the Air Force to phase out its use of the Russian-made RD-180 engine that powers ULA's workhorse Atlas 5 rocket."
This decision might be a lobbying effort by ULA to force Congress to give them additional waivers on using the Atlas 5 engine. Or they could be realizing they wouldn't be able to match SpaceX's price, and decided it was pointless wasting time and money putting together a bid. Either way, the decision suggests ULA is definitely challenged in its competition with SpaceX, and until it gets a new, lower cost rocket that is not dependent on Russian engines, its ability to compete in the launch market will be seriously hampered.
This decision might be a lobbying effort by ULA to force Congress to give them additional waivers on using the Atlas 5 engine. Or they could be realizing they wouldn't be able to match SpaceX's price, and decided it was pointless wasting time and money putting together a bid. Either way, the decision suggests ULA is definitely challenged in its competition with SpaceX, and until it gets a new, lower cost rocket that is not dependent on Russian engines, its ability to compete in the launch market will be seriously hampered.
It's hard to blame SpaceX for lobbying on that, as ULA was lobbying to keep them out of the process. Unfortunately, if you want to play the game in DC, at least at any significant level, you need to be involved in lobbying, even if only to counter the people who are lobbying against you.
US aerospace is notorious for using regulation and bureaucracy to obstruct space activities. I have heard, for example, that one of the last Atlas II (operated by Lockheed Martin (LM)) launches in 2004 had been delayed for a few days by a bogus concern about battery issues. Apparently, the same company then proceeded to interfere with two Atlas III launches by expressing recycled concerns about the RD-180 rocket engines used on that rocket.
SpaceX has also had some of their earliest launches delayed due to games played by LM (story discusses a SpaceX Vandenberg launch first getting delayed in turn by a delay in a Titan IV launch operated by LM and then being kicked out of their launch facilities because LM was occupying a nearby launch facility).