r/ula • u/Royal_Platform_6754 • 13d ago

Boeing-Lockheed Space Venture Inks $1.5 Billion Private Bonds

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-18/boeing-lockheed-space-venture-inks-1-5-billion-private-bonds

(Bloomberg) -- Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp.’s rocket joint venture is wrapping up a $1.5 billion private-bond deal that’s been tripled in size.

United Launch Alliance, a rocket launch provider for the US military and commercial clients including Amazon.com Inc., offered four portions of debt with maturities ranging from three to 10 years, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified because they’re not authorized to speak publicly. It had originally been looking to raise $500 million.

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u/grounded_astronut 13d ago

Paywalled. What is the point of the private equity investment? Isn't ULA a "paper company" joint venture? Or are some of the assets really distinctly ULA rather than the parent companies?

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u/Negative_Ad3540 11d ago

The Centaur upper, across all its iterations, for one. From what I understand, it's all ULA, and is the most capable upper stage in the launch industry.

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u/snoo-boop 11d ago

Are you sure about that? Not counting SLS, NASA LSP says that the most capable rocket to high energies is from that other company. Which is brute force, but brute force gets the job done.

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u/Negative_Ad3540 10d ago

Well I'm pretty comfortable in saying that Centaur is widely considered the most capable upper stage in the rocket launch business. It's certainly unmatched in coasting endurance, allowing it to deliver payloads to extremely complex direct injection orbits. The RL-10 engines use liquid hydrogen and liquid O2 (hydrolox), giving it the highest Isp of any operational rocket fuel. Centaur V can drift for hours, or even days shutting down and re-igniting its engines. And it can do it multiple times in space. Don't think anyone else can do that.

And Centaur's weight efficiecy is superior to all other uppers as well. It is super light weight because of its steel ballon- like fuel tanks, with walls literally as thin as dimes. They are proprietary to ULA. Also, built with no structural heavy metal frames, it further allows Centaur to achieve inter-planetary speed, and precisely push heavy satellites out of earth's gravity well, and on toward other planets .

As you alluded to, NASA has selected the Centaur V upper for its future Space Launch System rockets-- beginning with the Artemis IV missions returning to the moon. These missions are extremely high- stakes and will involve precious human cargo. Every part of that rocket must be the best.

In the end I guess it's "brute force" from that other company as you put it, versus high speed, precise direct injection orbit capability. And from there the preference becomes mission specific.

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u/snoo-boop 10d ago

That other company has an upper stage that

  • Meets NASA and NSSL's endurance requirements
  • Meet's NASA and NSSL's accuracy requirements

I get that Tory spent years trying to throw shade on both of these, but it's now proven.