Ars: Blue Origin in the running to buy ULA

According to Ars Technica, three companies are in the running to purchase United Launch Alliance from its parent companies. One of the companies interested in buying the company is Blue Origin, owned by Jeff Bezos and a major partner of ULA.

Blue Origin and others looking to buy ULA

According to Ars Technica, United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, has three potential buyers lined up. Ars reported earlier in the year that the company was looking for buyers, and it looks like they found them.

One buyer Ars was not able to confirm but described it as “a well-capitalized aerospace firm.” The second buyer being a private equity firm that could reshape the company and then attempt to resell it.

The third buyer, and one that actually makes a lot of sense, is Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. Blue Origin currently supplies ULA with its BE-4 engines powering its new Vulcan rocket. A rocket that is a direct competitor to Blue’s New Glenn rocket currently in development.

Blue Origin purchasing ULA would instantly give the company an orbital rocket, as Vulcan is ready to fly and will most likely succeed on its first flight. It would also give Blue Origin access to defense contracts worth billions to start bringing in some serious revenue to the company.

It actually makes a lot of sense for Blue Origin to purchase ULA as the two companies are already so closely connected with its BE-4 contract. Bezos is also connected through Amazon as both Vulcan and the Atlas V have contracts to launch Kuiper satellites for the online retailer.

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What would happen to ULA if purchased?

Why would ULA want to be purchased? Well why does anyone want to sell an asset? ULA’s parents companies have not seemed very interested in growing its launch services for a while. Also, ULA has fallen from its pedestal since SpaceX has surpassed it.

This makes ULA valuable enough to acquire for its contracts, technology, and skilled labor but probably not very valuable to invest in.

Mergers and acquisitions of large aerospace firms haven’t been common in recent years but we saw (not me personally but those that were around back then) a lot in the 70s to 90s. Lockheed Martin use to be the Lockheed Corporation and Martin Marietta. Boeing purchased North American Aviation (part of Rockwell International), the maker of the Space Shuttle orbiters, in 1996.

And of course Boeing and Lockheed Martin merged their rocket programs into ULA in 2006, effectively becoming a monopoly in the US launch market until SpaceX came around.

So while what will happen to ULA if it’s purchased depends a lot on who buys it, the easiest one to guess would be Blue Origin.

If purchased, which Ars believes could happen after the first successful Vulcan flight, Blue Origin would be able to begin directly competing against SpaceX in commercial launches. Taking Vulcan and its heritage and turning it into a company focused on grabbing commercial launch contracts rather than just government ones.

Sadly I don’t see a future, if Blue Origin purchases ULA, that Vulcan would survive past New Glenn coming online. Meaning anyone that works at ULA and can’t transition to Blue Origin projects would likely be let go.

For either other company? I could see similar pushes to change up the ideology of how ULA competes for contracts for anyone that purchases them. I can’t see new ULA ownership as anything but a good thing for its shareholders and the space sector.