SpaceX
SpaceX calls ULA NASA launch contract “vastly” overpriced in official protest
SpaceX has filed an official protest with the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) after NASA awarded competitor United Launch Alliance a launch contract for Lucy, an interplanetary probe meant to explore a belt of unique asteroids clustered around Jupiter’s orbital swath.
Announced on January 31st, SpaceX believes that NASA made a decision counter to the best interests of the agency and US taxpayers by rewarding ULA the Lucy launch contract at a cost of $148M, a price that the company deemed “vastly more [expensive]” than the bid it submitted for the competition.
Updated our story on SpaceX’s GAO protest of a NASA launch contract with comments from both NASA and ULA. https://t.co/qqCsnNatu0
— Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) February 14, 2019
With performance roughly equivalent to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket in a reusable configuration when launching from low Earth orbit (LEO) up to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), ULA’s Atlas V 401 variant is the simplest version of the rocket family with the lowest relative performance, featuring no solid rocket boosters. According to the company’s “RocketBuilder” tool, Atlas V 401 was listed with a base price of $109M in 2017. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 is listed with a base price of $62M for a mission with booster recovery, while the rocket’s highest-value expendable launch (for a USAF GPS III satellite worth ~$530 million) was awarded at a cost of $83M, with three subsequent GPS III launch contracts later awarded for ~$97M apiece.
Relative to almost any conceivable near-term launch contract on the horizon, SpaceX’s GPS III launch contracts act as a sort of worst-case price tag for Falcon 9, where the customer requires extraordinary mission assurance and the entire rocket has to be expended during the launch. Put in another way, NASA would likely be able to get the reliability, performance, and mission assurance it wants/needs from Falcon 9 for perhaps $50M less than the cost of ULA’s proposed launch, equivalent to cutting more than a third off the price tag. Part of NASA’s Discovery Program, the Lucy spacecraft will be capped at $450M excluding launch costs, meaning that choosing SpaceX over ULA could singlehandedly cut the mission’s total cost by a minimum of 8-10%.
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- A mockup of NASA’s proposed Lucy spacecraft. (NASA)
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- NASA’s InSight lifts off atop Atlas V 401, March 2018. (Pauline Acalin)
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- A panorama of Atlas V 401, March 2018. (Pauline Acalin)
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- SpaceX and NASA’s most recent science spacecraft launch, TESS. (SpaceX)
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- After launching in April 2018, B1045 landed on OCISLY and is being refurbished for a second launch in just 5 days, on June 29. (Tom Cross)
“Since SpaceX has started launching missions for NASA, this is the first time the company has challenged one of the agency’s award decisions. SpaceX offered a solution with extraordinarily high confidence of mission success at a price dramatically lower than the award amount, so we believe the decision to pay vastly more to Boeing and Lockheed for the same mission was therefore not in the best interest of the agency or the American taxpayers.” – SpaceX, February 13th, 2019
The fact remains that the Lucy mission does face a uniquely challenging launch trajectory, offering just a single launch window of roughly three weeks, after which the mission as designed effectively becomes impossible. Missing that window could thus end up costing NASA hundreds of millions of dollars in rework and delays, if not triggering the mission’s outright cancellation. NASA and ULA thus couched the launch contract award and ~50% premium in terms of what ULA argues is Atlas V’s “world-leading schedule certainty”. Excluding ULA’s other rocket, Delta IV, Atlas V does have a respectable track record of staying true to its contracted launch targets. However, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 “schedule certainty” continues to improve as the launch vehicle matures.
Admittedly, while Falcon 9 has gotten far better at reliably launching within 5-10 days of its on-pad static fire test, SpaceX has continued to struggle to launch payloads within a week or two of customer targets. Regardless, October 2021 is more than two and a half years away, giving SpaceX an inordinate amount of time and dozens upon dozens of manifested Falcon 9 launches to reach a level of operational maturity and design stability comparable to Atlas V, a rocket that has changed minimally over the course of 16+ years and 79 launches.
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- An Atlas V 401 rocket lifts off in 2017. (ULA)
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- Falcon 9 B1046 prepares for its third launch and recovery, December 2018. (SpaceX)
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- Falcon 9 B1046 is pictured here landing after its third successful launch in December 2018 – the first SpaceX rocket to cross that reusability milestone. (SpaceX)
In October 2010, NASA awarded ULA a contract valued at $187M to launch its MAVEN Mars orbiter on Atlas V 401. In December 2013, ULA won a $163M contract to launch NASA’s InSight Mars lander on Atlas V 401. In January 2019, ULA was awarded a contract for NASA’s Lucy spacecraft, priced at $148.3M for a 2021 Atlas V 401 launch. Put simply, barring ULA using a dartboard and blindfold to determine launch contract pricing or aggressive reverse-inflation, SpaceX’s very existence already stokes the flames of competition, particularly when launch contracts are directly competed by their parent agencies or companies.
Whether or not SpaceX’s protest is entirely warranted or ends up amounting to anything, it can be guaranteed that the fact that SpaceX was there to compete with ULA at all forced the company to slash anywhere from $20-40M from the price it would have otherwise gladly charged NASA. Another ~$50M saved would certainly not be the worst thing to happen to the US taxpayer, but it’s also not the end of the world.
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United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said that SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet is its leading competitive advantage in the U.S. airline industry. However, in recent comments, while he described the service as “the biggest competitive advantage” the carrier currently holds, he also acknowledged that the edge is temporary.
“…everybody eventually is going to have high-speed low earth orbit internet connectivity. It’s going to be a must-have. We are going to have a few years of being the only airline that has it at scale, and that’s our mission,” Kirby said. Until everyone has it, United aims to capitalize on its head start by converting trial users into long-term loyal customers.
🚨 United CEO Scott Kirby calls Starlink “the biggest competitive advantage,” but says it’s temporary.
“I think it’s the biggest competitive advantage. And it’s temporary. Like it’s not, everybody eventually is going to have high speed low earth orbit internet connectivity. It’s going to be a must-have. But we are going to have a few years of being the only airline that has it at scale, and that’s our mission.”
“I think we’re going to convince customers that United is the best airline and we’re going to get customers to switch their loyalty, to get our credit card, switch their loyalty to United. Not because of Starlink. They’re going to try us for Starlink and they’re going to stay with all the other technology, and everything else is better, and the technology in particular is so much better than technology other, and it’s accelerating because we’ve got the right tech stack, and because we’re like, our gap is getting wider and wider with our technology every day.”
Next: LAX becomes United’s first 100% Starlink hub in the first half of next year, and the United app will show your Starlink odds for each flight. https://t.co/hToyFWaWj7
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 27, 2026
United has moved faster than its rivals on Starlink installations. As of mid-to-late October 2026, the system was on roughly 43 percent of its fleet, with plans to reach 61 percent by year-end, 87 percent by June 2027, and full fleet coverage by the end of next year.
The airline already operates more Starlink-equipped flights than the rest of the U.S. industry combined. Los Angeles International Airport is scheduled to become United’s first 100 percent Starlink hub in the first half of 2027, and the carrier’s app will display the likelihood that any given flight has the service.
Kirby has pointed to early evidence that the offering influences booking decisions. Some passengers loyal to other airlines are already switching flights for Starlink connectivity, something the airline, along with American Airlines, has tried to leverage against competing airlines. Both companies used status-match programs, and some of those customers are pursuing company-specific credit cards, which signals an intent to stay.
Once onboard, these customers encounter the airline’s broader investments in aircraft, larger seat-back screens, oversized bins, connection tools, and a mobile app that Kirby says outperforms competitors. Wi-Fi satisfaction scores on Starlink-equipped planes have been reported to be nearly double those on aircraft with other systems.
Competitors are moving slowly to do the same. Southwest Airlines began installations in 2025 and expects to complete them soon. Delta is pursuing Amazon’s Leo system, while American expects to start Starlink work in early 2027 and has not yet detailed regional-fleet plans. This timeline gap gives United a multi-year window in which it remains the only major U.S. carrier offering Starlink at scale.
Kirby has framed the strategy as pressing that advantage while simultaneously widening gaps in other technology areas so that customers who try United for the Wi-Fi remain for the overall experience.
The approach reflects a calculated bet that superior in-flight connectivity can accelerate share gains and support longer-term financial targets, including a 10 percent pre-tax margin goal.
High-speed internet is particularly valued by premium and business travelers who can work or stream reliably. As low-Earth-orbit service becomes ubiquitous, the temporary nature of the pure connectivity edge means United’s retention will depend on whether its other product and operational improvements keep pace.
SpaceX’s Raptor engine family has steadily increased sea-level thrust while simultaneously reducing mass, turning iterative engineering gains into substantially higher performance for the Super Heavy booster. CEO Elon Musk shed more light on how powerful Raptor 4 will be, and it’s pretty crazy.
Raptor 1 delivered 185 metric tons of thrust at roughly 2,080 kilograms, while Raptor 2 raised that to 230 tons while cutting mass to about 1,630 kilograms. SpaceX data for Raptor 3 lists a target of 280 tons at 1,525 kilograms (with further reductions in associated vehicle hardware), while operational flight ratings have been cited near 250 tons.
This morning, Elon Musk stated that Raptor 4 is expected to reach 300 tons of sea-level thrust at roughly the same mass as Raptor 3. Across these versions, thrust has risen by more than 60 percent from the first engines while engine mass has fallen, producing a sharp improvement in thrust-to-weight ratio. This is a true testament to how great SpaceX engineering has been:
🚀 Elon says Raptor 4 will make 300 tons of thrust at sea level at roughly the same mass as Raptor 3.
How far Raptor has come:
Raptor 1: 185 tf, 2,080 kg
Raptor 2: 230 tf, 1,630 kg
Raptor 3: 250 tf, 1,525 kg
Raptor 4: 300 tf33 on Super Heavy = ~9,900 tf, nearly 3x Saturn V https://t.co/HQDswZhyvL
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 26, 2026
With 33 engines on SuperHeavy, the jump from earlier versions to a 300-ton Raptor 4 would produce roughly 9,900 metric tons of total liftoff thrust, nearly three times the Saturn V’s approximately 3,400 metric tons from its five F-1 engines.
This is not just a larger number on a data sheet, either, as sea-level thrust is the force available the moment the vehicle leaves the pad. This is when it is heaviest and still deep in Earth’s gravity well and dense atmosphere.
Higher levels of sea-level thrust directly improves the initial thrust-to-weight ratio of the full stack. A higher ratio produces faster acceleration off the pad, which shortens the time the rocket has to spend fighting gravity, and gravity losses during the first minute or two of the flight are a major drain on total available delta-v. Every second shaved off of that early climb preserves more propellant energy for reaching orbital velocity or for carrying extra payload.
Because Super Heavy’s engine count is constrained by vehicle diameter and packing density, increasing thrust per engine is the most straightforward way to raise total liftoff performance without redesigning the booster structure or design.
The same-mass target for Raptor 4 is equally important. Holding engine mass roughly constant while raising thrust improves the engine’s own thrust-to-weight ratio and reduces the structural and propellant mass fraction that must be carried solely to support the engines.
Earlier Raptor iterations also simplified or eliminated extensive vehicle-side hardware such as heat shields. These gains compound: more force for less installed mass leaves additional capacity for propellant, payload, or operational margins such as engine-out capability.
For Starship’s architecture, the practical effects are large. Greater liftoff thrust supports heavier vehicles, larger propellant loads, and higher payloads to low Earth orbit, figures SpaceX has targeted in the 100-plus-ton reusable range. That capacity underpins orbital refueling, lunar missions, and eventual Mars cargo and crew flights.
Continued growth in sea-level thrust therefore tightens the gap between theoretical rocket performance and the high flight rates and reusability needed to make large-scale space transport practical.
Tesla expanded its Robotaxi geofence in Houston, Texas, today, enlarging the service area and drawing a new rocket-shaped boundary across the city’s northwestern and central parts.
Although CEO Elon Musk said it was just a coincidence, the expansion seems to be an ode to SpaceX and its potential merger with Tesla.
🚨 Tesla has just expanded its Robotaxi geofence in Houston
It looks a lot like a rocket — we all remember the shape in Austin 🤣 https://t.co/cFOPEuiJ4u
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 26, 2026
The official Tesla Robotaxi account announced the change with the lines “Houston, we have liftoff” and “Bigger service area now live,” pairing them with a map overlay.
The prior white geofence, roughly 25 square miles covering Jersey Village, Harvest Bend, and the Willowbrook corridor along U.S. 290 and State Highway 249, now sits inside a larger blue zone that stretches southeast toward Bellair and closer to central Houston.
Houston’s Robotaxi service launched on April 18, 2026, the same day as Dallas, as Tesla’s first unsupervised public expansion beyond Austin. From the start, the vehicles were Model Ys running without anyone in the front seats, booked through the dedicated Tesla Robotaxi app and open to the public inside the geofence.
Trackers measured the initial zone at about 25 square miles; by late September it had not grown substantially. Community and registry data indicated a modest local fleet of unsupervised Model Ys, while dozens to nearly 200 Cybercabs, the purpose-built, steering-wheel-free two-seaters, have been spotted staging and testing in Houston lots, though public Cybercab rides remain limited to Austin for now.
Across the broader Robotaxi program, Tesla began public Robotaxi rides in Austin in June 2025, as a small geofence and vehicles with safety monitors became available for a ride-hailing service. Later on, Tesla removed the monitors and steadily expanded the service area until it covered most of the Austin metro area.
Unsupervised Robotaxi services now run in six cities: Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa. Cumulative driverless miles reported by the company have reached several million. The Cybercab entered public service in Austin in early September 2026 and has scaled rapidly there. The company has also said that Dallas is next for Cybercab rides in November, with further cities and 24/7 hours targeted by year-end, plus fleet-operator sales of the vehicle.
Waymo also operates a fully driverless service in Houston, which has been open to the public since August of this year.
The Houston expansion continues Tesla’s pattern of starting with tightly controlled validation zones before widening coverage as real-world data accumulates, while the rocket motif on the map underscores the company’s habit of injecting visual flair into its autonomy rollout.
Riders inside the new boundary can request unsupervised Model Y trips in the Robotaxi app; exact operating hours and further Cybercab availability remain subject to app updates and company statements.
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Starlink is ‘biggest competitive advantage,’ but it’s temporary, United CEO says
