Boeing, Lockheed Martin Consider Selling ULA Space Launch Business (yahoo.com) 62
This weekend NASA said they'd turn to SpaceX to return two astronauts from the International Space Station, notes the Associated Press, "rather than risk using the Boeing Starliner capsule that delivered them." (They add that Boeing's capsule "has been plagued by problems with its propulsion system.")
But Reuters reported that even before the setback, Boeing and Lockheed Martin were "in talks to sell their rocket-launching joint venture United Launch Alliance to Sierra Space, two people familiar with the discussions said." A deal to sell ULA, a major provider of launch services to the U.S. government and a top rival to Elon Musk's SpaceX, would mark a significant shift in the U.S. space launch industry as ULA separates from two of the largest defense contractors to a smaller, privately held firm.
The potential sale comes after years of speculation about ULA's future and failed attempts to divest the joint venture over the past decade. In 2019, Boeing and Lockheed Martin reportedly explored selling ULA but couldn't agree on terms with potential buyers... Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Cerberus Capital Management had placed bids in early 2023 for the company, according to people familiar with the negotiations. Rocket Lab had also expressed interest, two people said. None of those discussions led to a deal...
A potential deal could accelerate deployment of [Sierra Space's] crewed spaceflight business, analysts said. A ULA acquisition, they said, would give the company in-house access to launch vehicles that could send its spaceplane and space-station components into Earth's orbit, rather than spending hundreds of millions of dollars for those launches as a customer...
ULA has faced challenges in scaling Vulcan production and upping its launch rate to meet commercial demand and fulfill contract obligations with the Space Force, which in 2021 picked Vulcan for a sizable chunk of national security missions alongside SpaceX's Falcon fleet. A sale of ULA would unshackle the company from Boeing and Lockheed, whose boards have long resisted ideas from ULA to expand the business beyond rockets and into new competitive markets such as lunar habitats or maneuverable spacecraft, according to former executives.
While Reuters's sources say the negotiations could still end without a deal, they also said ULA could be valued between $2 billion and $3 billion, giving Boeing some cash while shifting its focus to its core businesses of aerospace and defense.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.
But Reuters reported that even before the setback, Boeing and Lockheed Martin were "in talks to sell their rocket-launching joint venture United Launch Alliance to Sierra Space, two people familiar with the discussions said." A deal to sell ULA, a major provider of launch services to the U.S. government and a top rival to Elon Musk's SpaceX, would mark a significant shift in the U.S. space launch industry as ULA separates from two of the largest defense contractors to a smaller, privately held firm.
The potential sale comes after years of speculation about ULA's future and failed attempts to divest the joint venture over the past decade. In 2019, Boeing and Lockheed Martin reportedly explored selling ULA but couldn't agree on terms with potential buyers... Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Cerberus Capital Management had placed bids in early 2023 for the company, according to people familiar with the negotiations. Rocket Lab had also expressed interest, two people said. None of those discussions led to a deal...
A potential deal could accelerate deployment of [Sierra Space's] crewed spaceflight business, analysts said. A ULA acquisition, they said, would give the company in-house access to launch vehicles that could send its spaceplane and space-station components into Earth's orbit, rather than spending hundreds of millions of dollars for those launches as a customer...
ULA has faced challenges in scaling Vulcan production and upping its launch rate to meet commercial demand and fulfill contract obligations with the Space Force, which in 2021 picked Vulcan for a sizable chunk of national security missions alongside SpaceX's Falcon fleet. A sale of ULA would unshackle the company from Boeing and Lockheed, whose boards have long resisted ideas from ULA to expand the business beyond rockets and into new competitive markets such as lunar habitats or maneuverable spacecraft, according to former executives.
While Reuters's sources say the negotiations could still end without a deal, they also said ULA could be valued between $2 billion and $3 billion, giving Boeing some cash while shifting its focus to its core businesses of aerospace and defense.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.
it world be hilarious if (Score:3, Funny)
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Never heard of Sierra Coin, is it a thing?
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these greedy fuckers sold it then Sierra starts mining operation and became insta quadrillion dollar company
Nahhh.
Bezos should buy ULA. It might give him a rocket booster to get his years-in-development flying fuel tank into orbit !
Or Bezos could have saved lots of chance and bought the national stock of ESTES model rocket parts...which work great but also don't go up very far.
No Refunds!!! (Score:4, Informative)
> ULA could be valued between $2 billion and $3 billion
They owe NASA a $4.3B refund for not delivering a working Starliner.
I can see why Boeing/Lockheed want it off their books.
Re:No Refunds!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
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I can't imagine anyone catching up to Musk and SpaceX, let alone matching them at problem solving or proven mass production solutions. Sure European and China have some proven reliable kit, but reusable not. Satellite insurance is another biggie, but we have seen Musk excel in anticipating problems. That is gold. Sure, play pass the baton, but insurance companies are heartless, and always punish failures big time.
Not in the next 5 years, but in the next 10? Gwynne Shotwell is 60, she's going to retire at some point and the next President might not be as capable. And Musk himself has grown notable erratic in the last 5 years. He's gone from making well made EVs, spaceships and StarLink, and pushing solar, to building CyberTrucks, robots, and buying social networks. The moment Shotwell retires and a yes-man takes her place Musk is liable to announce some sort of hair-brained pivot.
A rocket is still ultimately a bunch
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> Musk excel in anticipating problems. That is gold.
Or in this instance he is taking credit for the work his employees are doing. If he really had an eye for anticipating problems, he wouldn't be suing customers for not advertising on Twitter. Most of his advertisers left after some seriously ill-advised decisions he made for Twitter. Or should I say service formerly known as Twitter?
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They owe NASA a $4.3B refund for not delivering a working Starliner.
Do they?
I thought all their contracts were cost-plus.
Re:No Refunds!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Now Boeing and Lockheed are both telling shareholders they're going to shun fixed-price contracts from now on:
https://www.flightglobal.com/f... [flightglobal.com]
https://www.defensenews.com/in... [defensenews.com]
Re:No Refunds!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
I have trouble feeling sorry for Boeing on their KC-46 losses. Airbus won the original contract, and Boeing protested vigorously, submitting multiple proposals until they won...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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ULA didn't build Starliner. Boeing did. Yes, Boeing owns part of ULA, but that is a separate concern.
Re:No Refunds!!! (Score:4, Informative)
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"Starliner's failure does not impact ULA's bottom line."
Maybe not, but I"ll bet Starliner's failure impacts Boeing's appetite for staying in this line of business.
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At the rate Boeing is going, they're risking their future in all of their business units.
What I found amazing is that there seems to have been no effort made to certify Starliner to fly on Vulcan.
What I also find amazing, based on having watched the 'smarter every day' videos where he tours the ULA factory, is that ULA doesn't seem to be entertaining the newer paradigm for rocketry that companies like SpaceX have pioneered, namely reusability.
Of course SpaceX's BFR^H^H^HStarship seems delayed too, so they s
Re:No Refunds!!! (Score:5, Informative)
ULA != Boeing
ULA is a separate entity created as a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed combining the legacy Atlas and Delta launch vehicles under one umbrella and now the new Vulcan rocket. While a ULA vehicle is used to launch Starliner - that's it. The ULA vehicle (Atlas V) has performed properly on all three launches. They owe NASA nothing. Its' a testament to how a technical business can be run well when you put a technical person in charge (Tory Bruno).
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Isn't Starliner a *Boeing* product?
ULA is in charge of the Vulcan Centaur rocket, which will launch Starliner. ULA is a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed, and is not financially responsible for Starliner.
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>> ULA could be valued between $2 billion and $3 billion
"We'll give you $2 billion. We'll make it $3 billion if you keep the engineers!"
Re: No Refunds!!! (Score:2)
Crew Capsule Firesale (Score:5, Funny)
Re:no choice, really (Score:5, Informative)
This happened long before DEI was a thing. This is corporate rot from when the Jack Welch-type MBA's from the McDonnell Douglass merger took over the company.
https://www.amazon.com/Flying-Blind-Tragedy-Fall-Boeing/dp/B08SPK4FHQ/
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/04/boeing-corporate-america-manufacturing/678137/
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100% agree.
It was the "professional management" people brought in without regard to, you know, BUILDING AIRPLANES AND ENGINEERING that had basically nothing to do with the business and so could casually tout stupid empty-mouth slogans like Boeing's "#1 priority is diversity". They were only there for their three-year stint and golden handshake at the end, so filling a few quick, nice-sounding slogans was exactly according to their Personal Development Plan.
A professional with an engineering background
Re:no choice, really (Score:4, Informative)
A professional with an engineering background & career who is serious about building the best planes in the sky simply wouldn't say that. Not because they're racist patriarchs who want to throw us back to the 19th century, but because diversity CAN'T be the primary goal in building airplanes. If you say it is, you're either lying or stupid. This reminds me of another organization...oh yeah:
We're talking about a publicly traded company here. The primary goal of any publicly traded company is profit for the shareholders, not creating the best of anything. If you say otherwise, you're either lying or stupid. I suspect you lean more towards lying.
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Boeing's "#1 priority is diversity"
We're talking about a publicly traded company here. The primary goal of any publicly traded company is profit for the shareholders, not creating the best of anything.
I don't think y'all are too far apart because you're both right. Sure, a stated goal ends up not being anything more than a motto, but top management at a company like Boeing stating that their #1 goal is anything other than doing what they're supposed to do (and doing it well) is a sign that the company is not run well.
At the same time, we all know that a publicly traded company has no other goal other than to raise the value of their company. It used to be that you'd raise the value of a company by doing
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" I suspect you lean more towards lying."
And what exactly is your problem, Sunshine?
I don't at all disagree with you that a publicly traded company's ultimate goal is PROFIT...duh?
But there's also a long term approach about how the company is placed reputationally for the future IN ORDER TO **KEEP** MAKING MONEY; it seems in Boeing's c-suite the "reliable vendor supplying high-quality product" might have gotten deprecated in favor of "an aircraft supplier that is focused on ensuring their workplace has peop
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Nothing like reaching for racism when general incompetence throughout management is the real reason for Boeing's failures.
Your comment says more about you than you probably thought it would, and it's not saying good things.
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If by DIE you mean the McDonnell Douglass who ran the company into the ground, literally twice, then yeah, sure.
If you that some Black woman got the job because, well, she's a she, and her skin color is Black, etc., etc., etc., then I suggest you watch "Hidden Figures" and learn that perhaps the smartest person in the while fucking room is the one you'd over look cause of your personal biases and insecurities.
Even the idea is an embarrassment (Score:2)
The can't even get to the ISS reliably and they're already throwing in the towel! Where is the institutional engineering knowledge, particularly in rocketry, that these big defence players are meant to have ?
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Where is the institutional engineering knowledge, particularly in rocketry, that these big defence players are meant to have ?
It was the institutional knowledge and traditional zero-defect mentality that killed them.
ULA was beaten by the young engineers at SpaceX, who were willing to apply TDD to space hardware and then learn from each explosion.
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LOL, I sure ain't seeing the evidence of zero-defects. It's been the usual long string of failures all the way. Nothing all that unusual there, just it's taking far too long.
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I sure ain't seeing the evidence of zero-defects. It's been the usual long string of failures all the way.
That's the point. If you design your tests to succeed, you don't find the weaknesses.
With TDD, tests are designed to push the envelope to failure. Then, you sort through the debris, figure out what went wrong, fix it, and try again.
TDD leads to robust systems.
ZD leads to failure.
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Oh right, so there's no such thing as knowing what works from prior experience. Which those defence contractors do historically have a ton of experience with over many decades.
It's just an embarrassment all around for them.
Re: Even the idea is an embarrassment (Score:4, Informative)
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TDD = Test Driven Development. I was trained at work to always spell out an acronym the first time I used it, because not everybody will recognize it.
But yeah, Zero Defects (ZD) really tends to balloon costs because everything needs to be "perfect", you don't even know the full stresses things will go through, whether something is overbuilt or not.
Get it into the 30-90% chance of launch success range, around 99.9% at the component level, launch and see what fails, what almost failed, what failed non-catast
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Well, the 30-90% success rate was when I was talking about the very first test rocket, basically. This is the range where you toss the CEO's old EV in as the payload as a media stunt as opposed to a real payload.
Look at Starship, it took 3 attempts to get to orbit, but each time they made it further. After that, we're looking at a couple to get it back. Step by step progress.
Basically, once you get a successful launch or two under your belt (This can be a dozen total and still be cheaper than ZD), then y
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It comes down to shareholders, politicians and average voters - all of whom don't understand an don't care to understand that TDD can be effective.
Company: If my rocket goes boom, my stock will dive, so I can't risk my rocket going boom. We need to throw money at it so it isn't likely to go boom.
Senator/Representative: If you're rocket goes boom while doing TDD, I'll have to explain that to my voters and most of them won't understand so instead I'll have to hold a hearing and yell at you about it. I'll th
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ShanghaiBill blathered:
It was the institutional knowledge and traditional zero-defect mentality that killed them.
ULA was beaten by the young engineers at SpaceX, who were willing to apply TDD to space hardware and then learn from each explosion.
Nonsense.
It was the defense industry-style cost-plus project management mindset, and Chicago School MBA management principles that killed them, not SpaceX's engineering team.
There's a good reason that Boeing's C suite has decided it wants no part of fixed-price contracts in the future: those idiot children have no idea how to make money on those terms. And - surprise! - outsourcing, buck-passing, and treating highly-skilled engineering teams with massive accumulated institutional kn
Re:Would a SpaceX offer trigger FTC ? (Score:4, Informative)
ULA has nothing that SpaceX wants.
Even the IP portfolio is weak, and most patents have already been cross-licensed.
Re: Would a SpaceX offer trigger FTC ? (Score:2)
If it's Boeing... (Score:2)
... pieces WILL fall off.
Load it up (Score:1)
share holders should sue the board (Score:3)
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They won't be allowed to fail, due to the immense industry dependence on their maintenance contracts.
Can we spare a moment (Score:2)
Can we spare a moment and think of the Boeing's assassin being overworked AF?
In addition to all the whistleblowers, he now has to kill Shotwell, Musk, and whoever leaked this info.
Re: Can we spare a moment (Score:5, Interesting)
The truth will come out in about 75 years when stuff from this era gets declassified. I would give it a 50/50 chance of being shady.
Probably for the best. (Score:3)
Fire ULA CEO Tory Bruno (Score:5, Interesting)
The ULA CEO, Tory Bruno, is provably a moron. He saw the raptor 3 engine photo and didn't believe or understand that the plumbing was internal to it. That tells you he is dumb as a rock and shows you how far behind ULA is. Let's assume he had no idea that rocket engines could be 3D printed, he still shouldn't have assumed that the photo was missing plumbing and wiring because there were no holes for the plumbing. That's something an engineer with no knowledge of rocket engines should have ascertained. He should be fired immediately.
The X post I am referring to: https://x.com/torybruno/status... [x.com]
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It's one thing for a CEO to be a moron, but to demonstrate it on X is some thing else.
Re: Fire ULA CEO Tory Bruno (Score:2)
Who's paying for the 8 month stay in the ISS (Score:2)
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Or will consider ... (Score:2)
Needs to include SLS/Starliner... (Score:2)
Selling off SLS and Starliner to someone else would take away the need for Boeing to continue to pump money into that system and allow them to focus on their military hardware and their troubled commercial airliner business and let someone else sort out the Starliner mess.