# United Launch Alliance **United Launch Alliance (ULA)** is the 50–50 joint venture of [[Boeing]] and [[Lockheed Martin]], formed in December 2006 to merge their Delta and Atlas rocket lines into a single government-launch monopoly — which it was, for national-security payloads, until [[SpaceX]] sued its way into the market in 2014. It is in this vault as the incumbent in the vault's most-tracked procurement contest: the counterparty in every SpaceX award page, the legacy prime's answer to the defense-tech insurgents, and — since 2025 — a company without a permanent CEO, without a fully certified rocket, and without a buyer. ## The business ULA flies the Vulcan Centaur, successor to Atlas V and Delta IV, whose first stage runs on two BE-4 engines bought from [[Blue Origin]] — a dependence on a direct competitor that is the structural fact of the company. Its customers are the [[Space Force]], the [[National Reconnaissance Office]] and NASA; its business is the National Security Space Launch program. In the NSSL Phase 3 awards of April 2025, ULA was allocated an anticipated 19 Lane 2 missions worth about $5.3B, behind SpaceX's 28 and ahead of Blue Origin's 7; in the 2026 Lane 2 round it won 2 of 7 missions ($428M) to SpaceX's 5 ($714M) — see [[SpaceX NSSL Phase 3 Lane 2 Awards]] and [[SpaceX NSSL Phase 3 Lane 1 Awards]]. Vulcan's first national-security mission, USSF-87 on February 12, 2026, delivered its payload but suffered a "significant performance anomaly" in a solid rocket motor; the Space Force paused Vulcan national-security launches pending a fix, with a modified booster expected to fly in summer 2026. ## Leadership and the sale that hasn't happened Tory Bruno, CEO since 2014 and the public face of the "reliable incumbent" argument, left in December 2025 and joined Blue Origin; John Elbon has been interim CEO since. Boeing and Lockheed have been trying to sell the venture since at least 2023 — Sierra Space at a $2–3B valuation, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab and others have been reported as suitors — and as of July 2026 no transaction had closed. The parents' own troubles ([[Boeing]] above all) and the Vulcan anomaly explain the price; the [[Blue Origin $10B Raise]] page shows where the capital that might have bought it went instead. ## Why the vault cares ULA is the control case for the [[Commercial Space Sector]] and [[Space Launch Infrastructure]] pages: the cost-plus, two-prime model of the 2000s, kept alive by an "assured access" doctrine that requires two launch providers, being displaced by a company ([[SpaceX]], see the [[SpaceX Dossier]] and [[SpaceX Watch Log]]) that now flies roughly ten times as often. The [[SpaceX SDN Backbone Award]] and [[SpaceX Contracts]] pages record the displacement award by award; the [[Space Economy]] and [[Space Hub]] pages the consequences of a single dominant provider — which is the antitrust question the vault's [[Starlink]] page raises from the other side. ## See Also - [[Boeing]] · [[Lockheed Martin]] · [[Blue Origin]] · [[SpaceX]] · [[SpaceX Dossier]] · [[SpaceX Watch Log]] - [[SpaceX NSSL Phase 3 Lane 1 Awards]] · [[SpaceX NSSL Phase 3 Lane 2 Awards]] · [[SpaceX SDN Backbone Award]] · [[SpaceX Contracts]] · [[Blue Origin $10B Raise]] - [[Space Force]] · [[National Reconnaissance Office]] · [[Commercial Space Sector]] · [[Space Launch Infrastructure]] · [[Space Economy]]