Pentagon picks Blue Origin, SpaceX, ULA in $5.6 billion rocket program

The Pentagon announced the first winning bidders in its rocket launch contract sweepstakes on Thursday, with Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin grabbing a spot for the first time.

Blue Origin’s winning bid came as part of contracts awarded under the Pentagon’s $5.6 billion National Security Space Launch program.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX and United Launch Alliance – also known as ULA, the joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing – were also awarded contracts as part of the multi-year third phase of the NSSL program.

Blue Origin, SpaceX, and ULA did not immediately respond to CNBC requests for comment.

Under the program, known as NSSL Phase 3 Lane 1, the trio of companies will be eligible to compete for contracts through mid-2029.

ULA and SpaceX have already been competing for contracts under the previous Phase 2 edition of NSSL: In total, over five years of Phase 2 launch orders, the military assigned ULA with 26 missions worth $3.1 billion, while SpaceX got 22 missions worth $2.5 billion.

Blue Origin, as well as Northrop Grumman, missed out on Phase 2 when the Pentagon selected ULA and SpaceX for the program in August 2020.

But with Phase 3, the U.S. military is raising the stakes — and widening the field — on a high-profile competition for Space Force mission contracts. Phase 3 is expected to see 90 rocket launch orders in total, with a split approach of categories Lane 1 and Lane 2 to allow even more companies to bid.

Space Force outlined a “mutual fund” strategy to buying launches from companies under Phase 3: The military branch split the program into two lanes, in order to have one that features three companies fulfilling the most demanding and expensive missions, and the other that