United Launch Alliance

ULA was formed in 2006 when Boeing and Lockheed Martin combined their Delta and Atlas launch businesses. Its new rocket, Vulcan, which uses Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines and Northrop Grumman’s GEM 63XL boosters, first flew in January 2024 and was certified for national-security missions in March 2025.

On a Space Force launch on February 12, 2026, one of Vulcan’s four solid rocket boosters suffered what ULA called a significant performance anomaly. The satellite still reached its orbit, but ULA said it would find and fix the cause before the next Vulcan mission, and Vulcan had not flown again by the end of September 2026. Atlas V kept flying, carrying Amazon Leo internet satellites.