Nasa is planning to select United Launch Alliance (ULA) to supply a critical component for future flights of its Moon rocket, Bloomberg News reported.
ULA, a joint venture between American aerospace companies Boeing and Lockheed Martin, has been one of America’s most relied-upon commercial rocket launch partners for over two decades.
The decision, if confirmed, would replace hardware that was previously meant to be built by Boeing alone.
Robert H. Steinau, the Acting Inspector General of Nasa, had flagged that the Boeing-built component would have cost nearly USD 2.8 billion through 2028.
The component in question is the upper stage of a rocket.
It is the section that provides the final burst of thrust needed to push a spacecraft beyond Earth’s orbit and toward the Moon.
Nasa is now looking at using the upper portion of ULA’s Vulcan rocket, called the Centaur V, on the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket from its fourth flight onwards, adding wind to Nasa’s ambition to land humans on the Moon for the first time in over 50 years.
WHY IS NASA CHANGING ITS PLANS?
The changes are part of a wider rethink of the agency’s Artemis Moon programme, which has faced mounting delays and growing pressure from China’s advancing space ambitions.
Last month, Nasa added a spacecraft docking test to the Artemis programme before it attempts its first crewed Moon landing, marking a significant reshuffling of the original mission sequence.
The agency has also scrapped plans to build a more powerful version of the SLS rocket, choosing instead to focus on producing the existing design faster and flying it more frequently.
That decision directly impacts Boeing, which held a roughly USD 2 billion contract to build the upgraded upper stage. That contract has now been cancelled.
The Centaur V, already flying aboard ULA’s Vulcan rocket, runs on the same liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen fuel as the SLS, making it a practical and relatively low-risk choice for Nasa engineers.
