SpaceX vs ULA national security launch contracts: how Vulcan’s delays shifted the balance

SpaceX is not just winning more Space Force launch contracts than ULA. It is winning the shape of the market, which is a more useful thing to own.

The latest Phase 3 Lane 2 awards, covering the Space Force’s most demanding national security missions, split 54 planned launches between SpaceX and ULA, with SpaceX taking 28 and ULA 19, according to Ars Technica in April 2025. That was already a reversal from the 2020 competition, when ULA had the favored position. By October, The Spokesman-Review reported that the Space Force had awarded five of seven fiscal 2026 task orders to SpaceX and two to ULA, while Blue Origin got none.

The numbers matter, but the timing matters more. ULA’s Vulcan rocket was finally certified for national security missions in March 2025, after years of delays, and by then the Space Force had already started rearranging work around ULA’s gaps. The result is not a clean story of one rocket beating another. It is a story of one provider being ready when the Pentagon needed it, and another arriving too late to hold on to the business it once expected to keep.

Vulcan rocket certification delays changed the rules

Vulcan was meant to replace Atlas V and Delta IV without drama. That was the plan, anyway.

ULA had aimed for a mid-2020 debut, but COVID, engine-supply problems with Blue Origin, a test stand accident, and a booster nozzle failure on Vulcan’s second certification flight pushed the rocket’s first national security launch all the way to 2024 and certification to March 2025, SpaceNews reported in March 2025. The second certification flight itself happened in October 2024, and the Space Force used data from both demos, plus other reviews, to clear the vehicle for national security work.

That clearance was real, but it was not complete. SpaceNews reported in March that Vulcan had been certified for national security missions after the lengthy qualification process, while Ars Technica in April noted that ULA’s West Coast pad at Vandenberg was still under construction, leaving the company unable to handle certain missions from that coast. The Space Force was not withholding launches out of spite. It was making assignments to providers that could actually fly them.

That distinction is why the financial damage was so concrete. During the Phase 2 contract period from 2020 to 2024, ULA ended up with 54 percent of the launches rather than the 60 percent it had originally been allocated, and that shortfall meant three fewer task orders and about $350 million less business than expected, Ars Technica reported in April 2025. Two missions originally assigned to Vulcan were shifted to SpaceX’s Falcon 9, including a GPS launch, because the Pentagon could not wait for certification to catch up with the schedule, according to Phys.org in June 2025.

The tempo problem widened from there. Phys.org reported in June 2025 that SpaceX had already flown 64 Falcon 9 missions that year while ULA was only on its second launch. Then, in July 2025, SpaceNews reported that ULA had cut its 2025 forecast to about 10 launches, down from roughly 20 it had expected the year before. That is not the sort of revision that calms a military customer built around schedule confidence.

SpaceX wins Space Force launch contracts for more than one reason

Price is part of the answer. It is not the whole answer, but it is too large a part to ignore.

In the first fiscal 2025 award round, SpaceX’s seven missions were worth $845.8 million, or $120.8 million per launch, while ULA’s two missions were worth $427.6 million, averaging $213.8 million each, Ars Technica reported in April 2025. ULA’s assignments tend to be harder missions, so the comparison is not a simple apples-to-apples price contest. Still, the gap tells you where the Pentagon sees value when it can buy launch capacity in volume.

Readiness is the other half of the story. Two of SpaceX’s fiscal 2025 wins were not really contests at all. ULA was ineligible for those missions because Vulcan’s Vandenberg pad was not certified yet, so the Space Force assigned the launches elsewhere rather than keep payloads waiting on the ground, Ars Technica reported in April 2025. That is not favoritism. It is procurement with a stopwatch.

The service has also made clear that speed now matters in a way it did not always before. Phys.org reported in June 2025 that some national security payloads are expected to reach orbit in under three months from the go decision, compared with the traditional turnaround that could take up to 24 months. A launcher that cannot cover both coasts, or cover them on demand, starts behind the line even before the countdown begins.

That still does not mean ULA is finished. SpaceNews reported in August 2025 that Vulcan’s first national security mission, USSF-106, sent the Navigation Technology Satellite-3 directly into geostationary orbit using four solid rocket boosters. That matters because ULA has long been strongest in high-energy missions, the sort that require more intricate maneuvers and direct placement into geosynchronous orbit, as Ars Technica noted in April 2025.

So the cleaner read is this: SpaceX is winning the broad market, while ULA is trying to preserve a specialized niche. That is still business, just not the business ULA once had.

Who benefits if ULA loses launch market share

SpaceX is the obvious winner, and the numbers are not shy about it.

The Spokesman-Review reported in October 2025 that SpaceX was set to receive more than $5.9 billion of the five-year Phase 3 work, while ULA was set for more than $5.3 billion and Blue Origin nearly $2.4 billion if it can clear certification and start taking task orders. The same report said the initial fiscal 2025 assignment round gave SpaceX seven of nine missions and ULA two, with SpaceX’s share worth $848.8 million and ULA’s worth $427.6 million.

Blue Origin is the obvious other company in the frame, but it is still waiting for the moment when “approved” turns into “assigned.” The Spokesman-Review reported that Blue Origin received no fiscal 2026 task orders because New Glenn had not yet completed the two certification flights the Space Force uses to qualify new rockets. That is not a verdict on the rocket’s future. It is a reminder that the Pentagon does not pay for potential.

The Space Force itself is the less obvious beneficiary. The Spokesman-Review reported that the full five-year Phase 3 plan, across both lanes, will top 80 missions, nearly double the scale of Phase 2. Ars Technica reported in April that the Space Force expected the Lane 2 competition to cost $15.5 billion and ended up awarding it for $13.7 billion, a savings of about $1.7 billion. Competition did what competition is supposed to do, which is rare enough in Washington to merit a small pause.

There is also a strategic gain. Ars Technica reported in April that the Space Force had broadened the field for lower-risk launches to include Firefly Aerospace, Rocket Lab, and Stoke Space. That matters because it reduces dependence on a small number of providers. It also means the military has more ways to absorb a failure without turning the whole launch schedule into a hostage situation.

ULA still has a case, though. The Spokesman-Review reported that ULA’s two fiscal 2026 missions were lucrative assignments worth $428 million, and SpaceNews reported in August that ULA had a backlog of more than two dozen national security missions waiting to fly after USSF-106. ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno also said, per The Spokesman-Review, that the company has “a backlog of missions” it is working through and wants to launch as quickly as it can.

That is the shape of ULA’s remaining argument. It is not trying to be the only answer anymore. It is trying to be the reliable second one.

What the next round will show

The next test is not whether ULA can launch Vulcan. It already has. The question is whether it can launch often enough, from enough places, to matter in a market that now prizes cadence almost as much as capability.

SpaceNews reported in July 2025 that ULA had lowered its annual launch forecast to about 10 missions, even as it expanded infrastructure at Cape Canaveral with a second lane at Space Launch Complex 41 and upgrades to its Vertical Integration Facility. The company says those changes will shorten turnaround times. That may be enough to stabilize its position, but it will not restore the old one.

The market has already changed once. ULA’s delays opened the door, SpaceX walked through it, and the Space Force discovered it could buy both savings and resilience by spreading work across more providers. The next round will show whether that structure settles into a durable two-provider system, or whether Blue Origin finally forces a real three-way contest.