United Launch Alliance (ULA) is an American launch service provider, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin Space and Boeing Defense, Space & Security. As a launch provider, ULA designs, assembles, sells, and launches rockets like the Atlas V and Vulcan Centaur, providing access to space for national security payloads, commercial satellites, and deep-space exploration missions. Its primary customers include the U.S. Department of Defense, NASA, and commercial entities. Key activities involve launch services, rocket development, and partnerships with organizations like NASA and ESA for various space missions.
All verified mentions of this organization in source documents.
The October 2024 GEM-63XL anomaly delayed United Launch Alliance’s plans to launch USSF-106 and USSF-87 before the end of 2024.
The ongoing investigation into the GEM-63XL anomaly is likely to result in SpaceX displacing United Launch Alliance as the launch provider for the imminent launch of the 10th and final Lockheed Martin-built GPS III satellite.
The U.S. Space Force has suspended launches of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket under the National Security Space Launch program while investigating and fixing an anomaly related to the Northrop Grumman GEM-63XL solid rocket motor.
Amazon Leo depends on Blue Origin’s New Glenn and ULA’s Vulcan and booked additional launches with SpaceX to maintain its FCC license timeline.
United Launch Alliance engineering teams are focusing on Centaur V upper stage performance data to determine whether the issue is systemic or isolated to a specific batch of hardware.
United Launch Alliance and the U.S. Space Force are investigating a technical anomaly that occurred during the launch of the USSF-87 mission on February 12, 2026.
John Elbon is serving as interim chief executive officer of United Launch Alliance following the departure of Tory Bruno in early 2026.
United Launch Alliance is transitioning to a high-rate production model to meet a backlog of over 80 missions for government and commercial clients.
Tory Bruno served as CEO of United Launch Alliance for over 11 years and oversaw development of the Vulcan Centaur rocket.
Blue Origin was selected in April 2025 as the third provider for NSSL Phase 3 Lane 2 missions alongside SpaceX and United Launch Alliance.
Tory Bruno left United Launch Alliance and joined Blue Origin as President of Blue Origin’s National Security Group.
United Launch Alliance initially designed the Vulcan launch vehicle to be totally expendable.
The analysis critiques United Launch Alliance’s initial expendable design choice for Vulcan as limiting its competitiveness against reuse architectures.
Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance are pursuing competing partial-reuse strategies as alternatives to full reuse.
Beyond Gravity supplied components for both a ULA Vulcan rocket mission and an Ariane 64 mission that launched Amazon Leo satellites last week.
Beyond Gravity supplied the payload fairing for the ULA Vulcan rocket.
A ULA Vulcan rocket launched from Kennedy Space Center earlier on Thursday and that launch was supported by Beyond Gravity.
United Launch Alliance previously studied a reusable Centaur upper stage as a concept for in-space stage reuse.
United Launch Alliance designed the Vulcan rocket to be largely expendable rather than fully reusable.
Northrop Grumman is working with United Launch Alliance partners to collect data and understand the anomaly.