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SpaceX emerges as dominant Pentagon launcher

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Space Force to assign 54 missions through 2029

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SpaceX is world's most active launch company

(New throughout, adds funding figures and background throughout

from USSF announcement)

By Joey Roulette and Marisa Taylor

WASHINGTON, April 4 (Reuters) -

Elon Musk's SpaceX, United Launch Alliance and Jeff Bezos'

Blue Origin on Friday won U.S. Space Force rocket launch

contracts worth a combined $13.5 billion through 2029 to send

some of the Pentagon's most sensitive and complex satellites

into space.

The Space Force's flagship National Security Space Launch

procurement program will assign roughly 54 missions through 2029

in incremental task orders, according to its Space Systems

Command office.

SpaceX, awarded 28 of the missions, won $5.9 billion.

ULA, the joint venture of Boeing ( BA ) and Lockheed Martin ( LMT )

, won $5.3 billion for 19 missions. Blue Origin got

seven missions worth a combined $2.3 billion, with those planned

for launch in a later year.

Reuters earlier reported SpaceX and ULA were tapped for

the awards.

The program, the most competitive and lucrative U.S.

launch effort, effectively affirms the companies as the most

capable American rocket providers, though Blue Origin's New

Glenn rocket has launched once in January and has less

experience than SpaceX's and ULA's rockets.

SpaceX, with its Falcon 9 rocket, is the world's most

active launch company. It has launched dozens of military space

missions in recent years. The company said it will use Falcon 9

and its more powerful Falcon Heavy - three Falcon cores strapped

together - for the Phase 3 missions.

ULA's new Vulcan rocket had its first two launches last

year. The Pentagon certified Vulcan for national security

missions this month after months of review into a mishap with

its solid rocket motors during one of its flights.

The awards are part of the Phase 3 program's "Lane 2" track.

That track contains the Pentagon's most difficult and expensive

missions, involving a variety of complex orbits around Earth,

for which only the top U.S. launch companies with the most

experience are to compete.

SpaceX, according to two people familiar with the plans,

will get a vast majority of the missions ordered by the Space

Force in the first year of the program. The company's launch

rate with Falcon 9 is far greater than ULA and Blue Origin's.

SpaceX CEO, Musk, a special government employee and close

ally of President Donald Trump, has wielded enormous influence

over the U.S. government, from slashing federal agencies in his

government efficiency effort to pushing allies to lead federal

agencies that oversee billions of dollars' worth of SpaceX

government contracts.

Friday's awards have been years in the making. It is a third

phase of a program governing how the U.S. Defense Department

purchases rides to space for its military and intelligence

satellites, a lucrative area of government procurement once

dominated by the Boeing ( BA ) and Lockheed Martin ( LMT ) joint

venture, United Launch Alliance.

SpaceX has risen in the past decade to become a dominant

launch player. Its reusable Falcon 9 rockets offer a

cost-cutting capability its rivals have been slower to match,

making the company a key vendor for the Pentagon, which is also

increasingly reliant on the company for satellite-based military

intelligence.

In an earlier phase of the national security launch program,

Phase 2, SpaceX won 40% of the missions while ULA got 60%,

representing over $6 billion in missions combined.

Some missions originally assigned to ULA under Phase 2

had to be transferred to SpaceX over development delays with

ULA's Vulcan rocket, which had frustrated Pentagon officials.

"We are very pleased to be awarded 40 percent of the

Phase 3 procurement," ULA CEO Tory Bruno said in a statement.

"Vulcan is the right choice for critical national security space

missions and is the only rocket today designed to meet all the

requirements of our nation's space launch needs."

With SpaceX emerging as a dominant winner in the

program, Musk nonetheless took a jab at SpaceX's rivals on X,

his social media platform.

"Winning 60% of the missions may sound generous, but the

reality is that all SpaceX competitors combined cannot currently

deliver the other 40%! I hope they succeed, but they aren't

there yet," he said.