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Excerpt from qz.com
The Department of Defense has selected Elon Musk’s SpaceX and, for the first time, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin to compete for national security space mission contracts over the next five years. Boeing and Lockheed Martin’s joint venture United Launch Alliance (ULA) was also selected.
The three companies will have the opportunity to fight for contracts from the Pentagon as part of the third phase of its National Security Space Launch program. Space Force, the military’s branch for space established in 2019, said it has so far picked a small number of companies, but will look to more rocket manufacturers in the future.
“As we anticipated, the pool of awardees is small this year because many companies are still maturing their launch capabilities,” Space Force’s Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen said in an interview with the space product marketing company Satellite Evolution Group. “Our strategy accounted for this by allowing on-ramp opportunities every year, and we expect increasing competition and diversity as new providers and systems complete development.”