Space Force thinking outside the box to purchase rocket launches

The U.S. military is preparing to buy another round of rocket launches from companies next year, and Space Force leadership says they’re taking a new “mutual fund approach” to the acquisition strategy.

“As opposed to picking a single stock, we pick two different approaches, because we thought that would best allow the government to pivot,” said Colonel Chad Melone, the chief of the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command’s Launch Procurement & Integration division, in a press briefing on Friday.

Earlier this month the Space Force kicked off the process to buy five years worth of launches, under a lucrative program known as National Security Space Launch Phase 3. In 2020, the second phase of NSSL awarded contracts to two companies – Elon Musk’s SpaceX and United Launch Alliance, the joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin – for about 40 military missions, worth about $1 billion per year.

[What could go wrong? ~ Beege]