Happy Birthday, ULA…

United Launch Alliance (ULA) marked its first anniversary of operation on December 1, 2007, with company-wide employee celebrations and preparations for the final three launches of the year. Representing the consolidation of America’s premier Atlas and Delta rocket launch programs into one independent joint venture, ULA and its more than 4,000 employees are marking a year of solid accomplishments led by 11 successful launches for a variety of customers from four launch complexes at two launch sites: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.





Seven Delta II rockets launched three missions for NASA, one for the National Reconnaissance Office, one for the Air Force and two for commercial customers. Three Atlas Vs launched two missions for the Air Force and one for the NRO. In November, the first operational Delta IV Heavy successfully orbited DSP-23 for the Air Force.



ULA will continue in 2008 the day-to-day tasks of transitioning and combining the Atlas and Delta programs and their support systems to achieve commonality throughout the company. One of the most significant combinations is the planned collocation of major production operations at the state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Decatur, Alabama. Plans for that transition have been established and execution will take place over the next several years.



Challenges ahead for ULA include executing on 23 launches manifested through 2008, and completing the work of separation from the member company systems by the end of 2008. Complete separation from Boeing and Lockheed Martin includes having stand-alone business systems in place, anchored by a new information technology backbone. ULA’s next mission will be a Delta II launching the Italian-built COSMO-2 satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, on December 5th at 6:31 p.m. PST. The satellite is being launched for a commercial customer of Boeing Launch Services, a division of Boeing Network and Space Systems.