SpaceX Wins Its First Heavy Falcon Contract – With The Army Of The Air – The Motley Fool



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SpaceX claimed the title of "world's largest rocket manufacturer" four months ago, dethroning (NYSE: BA) Delta IV in the process. [19659002] With a payload capacity of 63.8 tonnes in low Earth orbit, each three-core Falcon Heavy SpaceX thruster can launch twice as many cargo in orbit as Delta IV Heavy. Perhaps most importantly, with a base launch cost of only $ 90 million, Falcon Heavy can launch this cargo for a fraction of the United Launch Alliance price (Boeing's joint venture with Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) [19459006

And if you think these two facts could appeal to the US Air Force, you are right.

  2 Falcon Heavy boosters landing after launch Feb. 6

] Falcon SpaceX Heavy has just delivered a punch to the ULA Source: SpaceX .

First a car, now a satellite

The first launch of Falcon Heavy SpaceX was as much a publicity stunt as a technological demonstration, launching Elon Musk's personal Tesla Roadster sports car the solar orbit exceeds the reach of Mars – but generates no revenue for SpaceX. second launch, on the other hand, will put some 39, money in the bank. In late June, the US Air Force granted SpaceX an order of $ 130 million to "orbit the Space Command Space-52 spacecraft [into]".

As the Pentagon has explained, this launch will only take place in September. 2020, but already, you can see the writing on the wall for ULA. That's because, if you read carefully, the Pentagon noted that it had received two proposals to launch the AFSC 52 into orbit.

Now, apart from SpaceX, the only US launcher capable of launching such large loads is ULA. So, while the Pentagon has not identified SpaceX's rival by name, it almost certainly means that SpaceX beat ULA to win this contract – and saved the taxpayers in the process.

What SpaceX's victory means to you

think we can all agree that SpaceX has gone from a rocketless start-up to the largest rocket factory in the world. the planet for 16 years (Musk founded SpaceX only in 2002). The fact that this is done while reducing the price of rockets makes the SpaceX story even better. But beyond that, what does this news mean for investors?

Here's how I think investors should think about this news: First of all, as cool as you think, you still can not invest in SpaceX (except perhaps in this sense). What you can do, however, is invest in the repercussions of SpaceX's success by avoiding bad investments and looking for better

On the bad front, with every single day that Pbad, I am more and more convinced that Boeing and Lockheed's ULA joint venture is doomed to failure. Since the US Air Force certified the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to carry payloads four years ago, Falcon 9 has won all offers for such missions against ULA's proposed Atlas V rockets.

once launched once against a Delta IV ULA for a USAF contract, but he won a contract, so he won a thousand.

For government launches, SpaceX charges an average of $ 96.9 million to Falcon 9 launches, and (up to now) $ 130 million for Falcon Heavy launches. The bureaucracy on the launch for the government requires SpaceX to increase its prices by about 50% over the $ 62 million / $ 90 million "list costs" announced for commercial launches. But even so, SpaceX charges much less than the best price of ULA – $ 177.4 million for a launch

Thus, ULA prices stay well above what SpaceX charges. As long as price is an object in these missions, it makes sense to badume that SpaceX will beat ULA to win contracts more often than not. At the same time, the ULA drastically reduced its prices by $ 400 million or more for Delta IV missions a few years ago. ULA must be congratulated for reducing costs and lowering prices, to the benefit of the taxpayer. This means that the ULA is reporting significantly less revenue at each launch, which could jeopardize the profitability of the joint venture in the coming years and jeopardize the $ 400 million annual profit that the ULA entrusts to parent companies Boeing and Lockheed.

Although Boeing and Lockheed did not necessarily make bad investments (19459017) (combined, the two companies earned more than $ 10 billion last year, according to S & P Global data Market Intelligence), this suggests that one will fully benefit from the rapid growth of the US space industry.

Long story short: If you want to find winning investments, you will need to look elsewhere.

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