United Launch Alliance still in trouble despite $882 million Air Force contract - Fortune

While SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket remains sidelined following a launch failure in June, United Launch Alliance—a joint-venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin —has won an $882 million contract to send military and intelligence satellites into orbit for the U.S. Department of Defense in fiscal 2016.

However, in a separate development on Tuesday Congress released a new version of a proposed $612 billion 2016 defense budget that could restrict ULA’s access to the rocket engines it needs to power its Atlas V rockets, the most commonly-used launch vehicle in ULA’s fleet. That could put the company in a serious bind beyond 2016 as the company scrambles to develop and certify an entirely new rocket (and rocket engine) that can help it fend off competition from SpaceX and other potential newcomers to the space launch market.

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