DECATUR, Ala. - A new partnership between United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, could mean production of a new rocket at ULA's massive plant in Decatur and a new rocket engine somewhere in North Alabama, ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno said this week.
In an interview with AL.com, Bruno said the Decatur plant that employs about 1,000 people now will continue to be ULA's "primary assembly and integration site" for rockets including its Atlas and Delta lines. "Decatur is just a great place," Bruno said. "For Atlas, for Delta, which will go on for years, and for whatever (the) product line looks like in the future, I anticipate it being here."
Bruno and Bezos announced in September that they would team up to replace the Russian-built RD-180 engines that now power the Atlas with a modified Blue Origin BE-4 engine already under development. The RD-180 has been reliable for years, and ULA has used it to boost a long line of national security and NASA payloads, but political tension between the U.S. and Russia has the government looking for an alternative.
The Blue Origin engine, fueled by liquid methane, has been in development for more than three years, which Bruno said was critical to ULA's interest given the typical 5-7 year development time for a new rocket engine. The partners will add 10-20 percent more thrust "so we can improve the performance of Atlas to take more payload up," Bruno said. He called the Blue Origin engine innovative, less complex, less expensive and, critically, "halfway done."
What ULA brings to the table
What ULA "brings to the table" is the ability to move the new engine from prototype to production, Bruno said. The engine will be built using what is commonly called 3-D printing. "It's just far simplified," he said. "It promises to be more reliable, higher thrust, easier to manufacture, easier to test."
"Today, we have Atlas and Delta," Bruno said of ULA's product line. The company is completing studies leading to an announcement early next year of "what we will have next." He confirmed, "It could be a new rocket."
Blue Origin and ULA are also discussing "where (Bezos's) engine should be manufactured," Bruno said. "We're looking all over the country, including here, Texas and other states to find the best place to do that."
Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle said Friday the city has been talking to ULA for the past three years about new engines and "new capabilities engineered in Huntsville, but also possibly produced in Huntsville." The city will work to make that happen, Battle said, "to make sure the Rocket City is actually producing rockets in the future."
Bezos: He's a serious rocket man
Bruno called his new partner Bezos "a really nice guy with a genuine interest in this, a commitment to learn the technology.... He's fully immersed in this." Bezos is "smart" and "serious," Bruno said, "and that's one of the things that attracted us. They've been working on this methodically for years."
ULA plans to enter new commercial markets, Bruno said. After 89 straight successful launches, he said the company understands what is necessary and what tests and procedures are like wearing "a belt and suspenders." Early in a product run, he said the company went above and beyond to make sure it could reliably launch vital and expensive national security and science hardware. Now, he said, "We can take (things) out and make (the process) a lot more streamlined without losing any of our reliability. That's going to take a whole bunch of cost and cycle time out."
When ULA does that and hits a certain launch price, Bruno said it will gain access to NASA commercial missions, telecommunications launches and other markets. "We're shrinking to get lean," he said, "and then we're going to grow."
What Bruno knows about Alabama
Although he has never lived here, Bruno has worked on various rocket programs in North Alabama for 15 years and is familiar with the region. "This is a great place to do this kind of work," he said. "A lot of people around the country don't know what Huntsville and North Alabama and Decatur are all about. There's such a technology industry here, a highly educated workforce. This is one of the educated regions in the country, and people don't know that.
"Mission-focused," he said. "The thing that brings me to work every day and has brought me to work every day for 30 years is the missions we are privileged to serve for our country. The workforce you find here, they get that."