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A new contract highlights the difference between “new” and “old” space
- OrwellianChild 9y agoTL;DR: ULA just got a $28M government contract to upgrade rocket avionics within two years for work that has already been completed and flown.
- anovikov 9y agoELC contract mentioned ($800M a year just to maintain capability) expires in 2019 and probability of its extension is exactly zero. So at least part of the problem will go away. ULA being 2x more expensive (but not 3x+ as now, with the ELC annual payments removed), for its much higher reliability, given the enormous cost of the government payloads, sounds like a fair deal. Early cancellation of ELC was under serious discussion in mid-2016 and it would have most certainly been done already if not Amos-6 accident which raised serious concerns about SpaceX's quality culture.