Kacey Roberts
Tory Bruno, CEO of United Launch Alliance and a previous Wash100 Award winner, said the U.S. Space Force should do large-scale purchases of heavy launch services in preparation for a possible rocket shortage in the coming years, SpaceNews reported Thursday.
Bruno cautioned that the U.S. national security launch program could be slowed down as a “perfect storm” has developed following the surge in commercial demand for launches and the Russian Soyuz rocket’s abrupt removal from the global marketplace after the Ukraine invasion.
He recommended doing “block buys” to meet the increasing government and commercial demand for launch services as well as to “have the flexibility that [national security procurers have] had in the past.”
“There’ll be more missions than both of us [ULA and SpaceX] are really able to fly and that’ll be for a number of years,” said Bruno.
About 35 space missions for the U.S. military and intelligence efforts are anticipated to be launched by the two companies under the second phase of the National Security Space Launch program.
