Comment by philipwhiuk
2 days ago
It's going to replace ULA as the secondary option for DoD launches. That's a multi-billion dollar contract.
It'll put price pressure on SpaceX who have been able to charge increasingly large amounts without the competition from ULA recently.
SpaceX, ULA, and Blue Origin will all three be on Space Force's National Security Space Launch Phase III Lane 2 IDIQ.
Blue Origin won't replace ULA on that contract, but will compete head to head with SpaceX and ULA to win launch task orders.
I think the parent comment refers to ULA being on life support. The new contracts won't be as flush as the company was designed to need, and there won't be 3x launch cadence.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/08/investing-in-space-how-banke...
Here is a deeper history/analysis of ULA and how they were propped up by maintenance fees to retain launch capacity even when there were no payloads.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyxLAezc9k0