Billionaire Space Battle Heats Up As Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos Eyes Rival, Elon Musk's SpaceX
When the Vulcan rocket lifts off for the first time as soon as next week, multiple billionaires are sure to be watching. Built through a joint venture of Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp., the new vehicle is poised to take on Elon Musk's SpaceX and ferry satellites and cargo for the likes of the Pentagon, NASA, and even Amazon.com Inc.
Vulcan is also helping fuel takeover offers for the company building it, the United Launch Alliance. Among them is a multibillion-dollar bid from Blue Origin LLC, the ambitious space venture run by billionaire Jeff Bezos, according to people familiar with the matter.
It's a pivotal moment for ULA, a once-dominant launch provider for the US government whose star has faded in recent years. With SpaceX now leading the commercial market and making inroads with the government on the strength of its reusable Falcon 9 rocket, ULA finds itself needing to adapt to avoid being left behind.
“SpaceX likes to say they have a monopoly” in the launch market, Tory Bruno, ULA's chief executive officer, said in an October interview. “They don't.”
Vulcan, set to debut early Monday after almost a decade in development, enters a market starved for more capacity. The rocket is meant to be a cheaper, all-American alternative to ULA's legacy Atlas and Delta vehicles to carry the government's highest profile satellites.
If Vulcan proves it can fly — and then fly again and again — the vehicle is the company's best hope to gain ground on Musk's launch behemoth. ULA, which also aims to build out the commercial side of its business, has already signed contracts worth billions for roughly 70 Vulcan missions.
“It's important to demonstrate success as soon as they can,” said Cristina Chaplain, an independent space analyst
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