“The ULA Vulcan program has worked in an unsatisfactory manner in the past year.” It was the title of a sub-comity of the Chamber of Armed Services Committee on the hearing of strategic forces on the performance of United Launch Alliance (ULA) space launch Last week.
As Ars Technica reports, Major-General Stephen G. Purdy, AIR ATTRIMPER ATTERIME ATTRIMPER OF THE AIR Force for the acquisition and integration of space, has taken ULA, a joint venture between Boeing(Nyse: ba) And Lockheed Martin(Nyse: lmt)The task of causing “delays in launching four national security missions”. Spatial company has twice launched its new Vulcan rocket and Certification finally won To control national security missions in March after the space force generously ignored the fact that, during the certification flight of October 2024 of the rocket, one of its engine nozzles fell.
Image source: United Launch Alliance.
However, despite the spatial force that makes this favor, Ula has failed to prepare Vulcan to be launched even once since her certification two months ago. Certainly, I personally Expect that Ula resonates her problems and resume Vulcan flights shortly. (With Atlas V due for imminent retirement, he has to!) But it would be better to move on.
Because on the other side of the ocean, one of the largest competitors in Ula, giant of aerospace and space Airbus(OTC: EADSY)already begins to improve your game in space.
Airbus struggles in space are well known. The new Ariane 6 rocket of the company has taken almost a decade to develop. As he was Ready for the flight, he ended up costing much more than expected for each launch. The growing pains are far from unknown in the space sector, however, and it seems that the European Aerospace Company finally finds its place in space.
Revenues from the company’s spatial division, which are part of the Airbus defense and space (ADS), fell from 18% from 2021 to 2023 before rebounding 10% in 2024. While 2025 begins, it seems to gain momentum. According to a new report of the payload space, advertising space revenues increased by 28% in the first quarter of 2025. Assuming that this is correct, this would mean that Airbus’s spatial activity increases more than twice as fast as advertisements in general, where income would only increase 11% to the first sorting. Profitability is likely to improve also after the company has taken $ 2 billion in charges in the past two years and has dismissed 2,500 workers to reduce operating costs.
The contractual victories are underway: $ 157 million to build two synthetic opening radar defense satellites for Great Britain; 2.5 billion dollars more to build a pair of major communication satellites for the German army; And a big contract with Eutelsat to build 100 satellites for the constellation of broadband Internet satellites of this company.
In addition to all this, Airbus CEO, Guillaume MJD Faury, made a cryptic comment during the company’s post-benefit call conference last month: “We continue … looking at different scenarios to create a scale in the European space sector.” The payload and others believe that this could be a reference to an Airbus plan to merge its satellite activity with those of other European defense companies Thales and Leonardo to create a European champion who could compete with SpaceX and Starlink.
However, it is not because Iirbus shoots mainly for SpaceX. In Rockets, Airbus CEO, Faury, said that it was his “priority” now to “accelerate” Ariane 6 launches at the same time as the Ula vulcan rocket program seems blocked.
In at least one respect, it would seem to put Airbus in a head-to-face competition with Ula. Amazon(Nasdaq: Amzn)After all, contracts to the two companies have to help him launch his Kuiper Internet project in orbit. Time is gasoline in this effort, with a deadline of July 30, 2026, the Federal Commission Commission (FCC). Whatever the space company, its rocket launch rate can first capture a larger share of Amazon work.
Even greater, the CEO of the ULA, Tory Bruno, has made a main objective to diversify the ULA income base by expressing Vulcan its launches at around 50-50 between the US government and trade missions. Historically, the ULA was almost exclusively an American government launcher, but this diversification initiative puts Ula in direct competition with Airbus – at the same time as Ula is already in competition with SpaceX, 800 LB. Gorilla in Lance commercial space.
All well considered, it’s a bad time for Ula to make her biggest current customer, Space Force, angry with this. Investors who seek to avoid more Boeing drama may want to take a look at Airbus Stock instead.
At 29 times the dragging earnings, I would not necessarily say that Iirbus is “cheap”. But analysts providing for annual growth of 24% in the long term and space income which already increases faster than thatAirbus Stock may well be cheap enough to buy as an alternative to Boeing Stock.
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John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, a subsidiary of Amazon, is a member of the board of directors of Motley Fool’s. Rich Smith Has no position in the actions mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions and recommends Amazon. The Motley Fool recommends Lockheed Martin. The Word’s madman has a Disclosure policy.
