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SpaceX calls ULA NASA launch contract “vastly” overpriced in official protest

Falcon 9 B1054 lifts off on SpaceX's first expendable Block 5 launch. (SpaceX)

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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.

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.

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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%.

 

“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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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.


Check out Teslarati’s newsletters for prompt updates, on-the-ground perspectives, and unique glimpses of SpaceX’s rocket launch and recovery processes!

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Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Starlink makes a difference in Philippine province ravaged by typhoon

The Severe Tropical Storm battered the province, leaving communications networks in the area in shambles.

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Credit: Starlink/X

The Philippines’ Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) is using Starlink to provide connectivity in the municipality of Masbate, which was affected by Severe Tropical Storm Opong (international name Bualoi). 

The Severe Tropical Storm battered the province, leaving communications networks in the area in shambles.

Starlink units enhance connectivity

DICT Secretary Henry Aguda visited the province to assess internet and communications infrastructure and deliver 10 additional Starlink satellite units, according to the Philippine News Agency. The is move aimed at strengthening emergency response and restore digital access to the area.

Aguda met with Masbate Governor Richard Kho during his visit and joined telecommunications representatives in inspecting provincial offices, free charging stations, and Wi-Fi connectivity sites for residents. 

According to DICT officer-in-charge Rachel Ann Grabador, three Starlink units, 10 routers, and a 2kW solar-powered station have already been deployed in the province following the typhoon. The units have been installed at key facilities such as Masbate Airport’s communications tower and the Masbate Provincial Hospital’s administrative office. 

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Game-changing technology

Thanks to its global coverage and its capability to provide high-speed internet connectivity even in remote areas, Starlink has become the best communications solution that can be deployed in the aftermath of natural disasters. Its low-cost kits, which are capable of of providing fast internet speeds, are also portable, making them easy to deploy in areas that are damaged by natural disasters.

As noted in a Space.com report, there are currently 8,475 Starlink satellites in orbit, of which 8,460 are working, as of September 25, 2025. Initially, SpaceX had filed documents with International regulators to place about 4,000 Starlink satellites in Low Earth Orbit. Over time, however, the number of planned Starlink satellites has grown, with SpaceX aiming to launch as many as 42,000 Starlink satellites to fully connect the globe.

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SpaceX shares targets and tentative launch date for Starship Flight 11

As with all SpaceX tests, the estimated timeline for Starship Flight 11 remains subject to change based on conditions and readiness.

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Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX is targeting Monday, October 13, for the eleventh test flight of its Starship launch system. The launch window is expected to open at 6:15 p.m. CT. 

Similar to past Starship missions, a live webcast will begin about 30 minutes before launch on SpaceX’s website, X account, and X TV app. As with all SpaceX tests, the estimated timeline for Starship Flight 11 remains subject to change based on conditions and readiness.

Super Heavy booster landing test

The upcoming mission will build on the data gathered from Starship’s tenth test flight, focusing on booster performance and upper-stage capabilities. The Super Heavy booster, previously flown on Flight 8, will launch with 24 flight-proven Raptor engines, according to SpaceX in a blog post on its official website. Its primary objective is to validate a new landing burn engine configuration designed for the next generation of Super Heavy.

Instead of returning to Starbase, the Super Heavy booster will follow a trajectory toward the Gulf of America. During descent, it will ignite 13 engines before transitioning to a five-engine divert phase and then completing the landing burn with three central engines, entering a full hover while still above the ocean surface, followed by shutdown and dropping into the Gulf of America.

Starship upper-stage experiments

The Starship upper stage for Flight 11 will carry out a series of in-space demonstrations, including the deployment of eight Starlink simulators that are comparable in size to next-generation Starlink satellites. These payloads will reenter and burn up during descent. A planned Raptor engine relight in orbit will also provide valuable test data.

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To evaluate the upper stage’s resilience during reentry, SpaceX engineers have intentionally removed heat shield tiles from select areas to stress-test Starship’s thermal protection system. The vehicle will attempt new maneuvers during descent, including a banking profile and subsonic guidance algorithms intended to simulate future return-to-launch-site missions. The upper stage will ultimately target a splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

SpaceX has already posted a link to the livestream for Starship Flight 11: 

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Astra CEO shades SpaceX over employee workload and Starbase

Elon Musk once stated that no one ever changed the world working just 40 hours a week.

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Credit: SpaceX

Elon Musk once stated that no one ever changed the world working just 40 hours a week. This was something that is openly known among his companies. They have the potential to change the world, but they require a lot of hours.

SpaceX’s working environment was recently criticized by Chris Kemp, the chief executive officer of Astra. During some remarks at the Berkeley Space Symposium 2025 earlier this month, Kemp shared some sharp remarks about the Elon Musk-led private space enterprise.

SpaceX working conditions and Starbase

As noted in a report from Ars Technica, Kemp discussed a variety of topics during his talk. These included Astra’s successes and failures, as well as his thoughts on other players in the spaceflight industry. To be fair to Kemp, he practically shaded every major rival, calling Firefly’s engine “garbage,” dubbing Blue Origin as slow, and stating that Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket is “too small.”

SpaceX also received some colorful words from the Astra CEO. According to Kemp, SpaceX is leading the way in the spaceflight industry and Elon Musk is admirable in the way that he is willing to fail in order to move quickly. He did, however, highlight that Astra offers a significantly better working environment than SpaceX.

“It’s more fun than SpaceX, because we’re not on the border of Mexico where they’ll chop your head off if you accidentally take a left turn. And you don’t have to live in a trailer. And we don’t make you work six and a half days a week, 12 hours a day. It’s appreciated if you do, but not required,” Kemp said.

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Elon Musk’s demands

It is known that Elon Musk demands quite a lot from his employees. However, it is also known that Musk-led companies move very fast and, in more ways than one, they have accomplished world-changing feats. Tesla, for example, has practically ushered in the era of the modern electric vehicle, and SpaceX has made space attainable through its reusable rockets. With this in mind, employees at Musk’s companies, and this of course includes SpaceX, are likely proud of their long work hours. 

No one could probably go to Mars in this lifetime with a team that really works just 40 hours a week, after all.

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