On Tuesday February 6, 2018 Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) launched their Falcon Heavy rocket into space with a Tesla Roadster as their payload with “Starman” as the driver of the car.
“Silly fun things are important” Elon Musk said during a press conference following this historic launch. “Normally for a new rocket they’d launch like a block of concrete or something like that and that’s so boring, and I think that just the imagery of it is something that’s going to get people excited around the world”.
SpaceX began their business in March of 2002 and a short time later received their Government CAGE code 3BVL8 in September of 2002. Companies wishing to do business with the U.S. Federal Government, DoD or any of its agencies are required to get a CAGE code.
On September 26, 2003 SpaceX was awarded their first government contract for Basic space flight research with the Naval Research Laboratory. The contract number was N00173-03-C6021 for a total $500,000.
In 2014 SpaceX filed a Complaint in the United States Court of Federal Claims alleging, that the United States Air Force has entered into an unlawful contract with United Launch Systems, a joint venture between The Boeing Company and Lockheed Martin Corporation, to procure rocket launch vehicles on a sole source basis, pursuant to the Air Force’s Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) Program.
The above complaint probably occurred due to research as it related to past U.S. Government contracts, in this case U.S. Air Force contracts. Any company selling to the DoD, or U.S. Federal Government will benefit from this kind of research and is something that successful Government contractors do on a continuous basis. Data and research helps show the path to success answering questions such as who are my competitors? What price did they charge?
SpaceX is now one of the contractors in the Air Force EELV Program. On April 27, 2016 the US Air Force, Space Missile Systems Center division in El Segundo Calif. awarded SpaceX a contract for EELV Phase 1A GPS III Launch Services for an amount of $82,700,000.00, the contract number was FA8811-16-C0001.
Data gathered from multiple U.S. Government sources is one way to see the best picture. We also found some FAA data relating to launch vehicles for commercial uses showing two of Tesla’s competitors:
All three companies provide orbital vehicles for commercial purposes; they are ULA, LMCLS and SpaceX. Each operates at the same launch site at CCAFS VAFB. The rocket, payload and commercial estimated price per launch are as follows:
Atlas V – Mass to GTO (kg) 3,460 $110M
Delta IV Mass to GTO (kg) 3,060 $164M
Falcon 9 Mass to GTO (kg) 4,850 $61.2M
As you can see there is a drastic difference between the pricing so when competing against an open Government solicitation knowing this information can be valuable.
If your company large or small wishes contract with the U.S. Federal Government, the more data you review the better off you will be.
The majority of this articles content came from data contained within the BidLink database. BidLink is an industry leader in providing government procurement data which has been used by DoD and Commercial industries for the past 18 years.
P.S. Elon one suggestion, add some solar electric charging stations in space for “Starman” to recharge at. – Jim
Comments? Contact Jim at jimnews@bidlink.net