ULA’s Atlas 5 rocket, one of the vehicles in the Air Force block buy for the EELV program. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

[Via Satellite 04-29-2014] United Launch Alliance (ULA) released a statement addressing the SpaceX suit against the U.S. Air Force’s block buy of 36 cores from ULA for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle Program (EELV). In the statement, the company reinforced the position that, “The recent five-year block buy contract was the result of a best practice acquisition process that enabled the government to negotiate a block of launches in advance that enabled significant operations efficiency and created the needed stability and predictability in the supplier and industrial base, while meeting national security space requirements.”

ULA also pointed out in the statement that the Air Force buy “saved the government and taxpayers approximately $4 billion,” and ascertained that new entrants into governmental space launch programs must meet “rigorous certification criteria of vehicle design, reliability, process maturity and safety systems in order to compete.”

ULA has been involved in the EELV program since its start in 2006 and has carried out 81 consecutive launches with a 100 percent mission success rate.