Last year, the CEO of Boeing(NYSE: BA) and Lockheed Martin(NYSE: LMT) joint venture United Launch Alliance (ULA) seemed frustrated at the amount of time the U.S. Space Force was taking to decide whether to certify Vulcan Centaur, ULA's new space rocket, as being safe to launch national security cargoes. Nevertheless, after decades in the space business, and well familiar with how these things go, Bruno confidently predicted in December that Space Force would eventually clear his rocket for launch, whether "this month, next month, [or in the] next few months."
Mentally translating "few" as "no more than three," I interpreted this as meaning Bruno expected certification no later than March 2025. And wouldn't you know it? Last week, on March 26, 2025, Space Force came through for ULA. As of today, Vulcan Centaur is USSF-certified for launch.
What's next for Vulcan
Space Force certification follows ULA's two (mostly) successful space launches in January and October 2024. It was the October launch, which suffered a minor mishap when a solid rocket booster nozzle fell off mid-flight, that delayed certification so long. But now that certification has been obtained, ULA will be permitted to bid Vulcan to conduct launches under the multibillion-dollar National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program, competing with SpaceX (whose Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets are already certified).
As SpaceNews reports, ULA's next launch will use an already-certified Atlas V rocket, on a commercial mission for Amazon(NASDAQ: AMZN), launching Kuiper internet satellites in April. By summer, ULA should be ready to launch Vulcan rockets on national security missions, specifically, USSF-106 and USSF-87. And by the end of this year, the company plans to launch 12 missions total (so nine more than these), mixed roughly 50-50 between national security missions and commercial launches for Amazon.
By year-end, the company hopes to have the Vulcan launches running regularly enough to maintain a cadence of two launches per month, although that will slow in 2026, when ULA plans 20 launches total.
What it means for ULA, and for Boeing and Lockheed Martin
ULA, which initially intended to launch 20 times this year, will still end up launching 20 times next year. The worst possible spin on this story, therefore, is that ULA's Vulcan troubles pushed back its launch plans by a year -- but did not result in ULA missing any launches. In other words, its revenue may have been delayed, but it won't be lost.
For Boeing and Lockheed, who as co-owners split the proceeds of this ULA revenue 50-50, this is good news. It's even better news when you consider that this isn't even a complete one-year delay, because ULA will still launch 12 times this year.
That's more than twice the five launches ULA managed in 2024, and 4 times as many launches as ULA conducted in 2023. Fact is, it's been nearly a decade -- 2016 -- since ULA was able to launch 12 times in a single year. Assuming ULA hits this target, what might that mean for ULA and its owners?
Here's a clue: In 2016, according to data from Payload Space, ULA generated $650 million in profit. That's $325 million each for Boeing and Lockheed.
Granted, price competition from SpaceX wasn't as fierce back then as it is today. Still, Payload noted that even in 2023, when ULA launched only three times, and when competition from SpaceX was already pretty intense, ULA was able to eke out an $80 million profit. Anticipating 4 times as many launches might produce at least 4 times as much profit -- say, $320 million -- in 2025 doesn't seem too much of a stretch. And that implies a tidy $160 million profit for each of Boeing and Lockheed Martin from their space joint venture this year.
So long as ULA can keep that up, this space company might be a survivor. And that might convince Boeing and Lockheed to keep it around, and not sell or shut it down.
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John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon. The Motley Fool recommends Lockheed Martin. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
