United Space Alliance (USA) was a spaceflight operations company. USA was established in August 1995 as

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acce ...

Rockwell International Rockwell International was a major American manufacturing conglomerate (company), conglomerate. It was involved in aircraft, the space industry, defense and commercial electronics, components in the automotive industry, printing presses, avioni ...

and

Lockheed Martin The Lockheed Martin Corporation is an American Arms industry, defense and aerospace manufacturer with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta on March 15, 1995. It is headquartered in North ...

, primarily to support operations of the

Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable launch system, reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. ...

. The sale of Rockwell's aerospace and defense assets to

Boeing The Boeing Company, or simply Boeing (), is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, and sells airplanes, rotorcraft, rockets, satellites, and missiles worldwide. The company also provides leasing and product support s ...

in December 1996 made Boeing the co-owner along with Lockheed for the rest of the company's corporate existence. The company was headquartered in

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

, Texas and in 2008 employed approximately 8,800 people in Texas, Florida, Alabama, and the Washington, D.C. area. The company was dissolved on 20 December 2019

History

United Space Alliance was formed as a limited liability company as a joint venture between Rockwell International and Lockheed Martin in response to NASA's desire to consolidate many

Space Shuttle program The Space Shuttle program was the fourth human spaceflight program carried out by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which accomplished routine transportation for Earth-to-orbit crew and cargo from 1981 to 2011. Its ...

contracts to one prime contractor. USA and NASA signed the Space Flight Operations Contract (SFOC) in September 1996 to become the single prime contractor that NASA was seeking. USA supported the contract for 10 years through September 2006. This led to USA and NASA agreeing on October 2, 2006 to the Space Program Operations Contract (SPOC). Until 2011, USA's major business was the operation and processing of

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

fleet and

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

at Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center and

John F. Kennedy Space Center The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC, originally known as the NASA Launch Operations Center), located on Merritt Island, Florida, is one of the NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) ten NASA facilities#List of field c ...

. This work was defined by the Space Program Operations Contract (SPOC) between NASA and USA. The contract ran from October 1, 2006 through September 30, 2010, which was to be the end of Space Shuttle operations. The contract included five one-year options that could extend the contract through Fiscal Year 2015. Efforts under the Space Program Operations Contract included work and support for mission design and planning; software development and integration; astronaut and flight controller training; system integration; flight operations; vehicle processing, launch and recovery; vehicle sustaining engineering; flight crew equipment processing; and Space Shuttle and International Space Station-related support to the Constellation Program. It was a cost reimbursement contract, with provisions for award and performance fees.

Search for role in the post-Shuttle era

With the planned end of the Space Shuttle program in 2011, USA sought new business opportunities through new government contracts for other NASA programs. One of those contracts was the 2008 Integrated Mission Operations Contract (IMOC) to provide flight operations support for the

Constellation Program The Constellation program (abbreviated CxP) was a crewed spaceflight program developed by NASA, the space agency of the United States, from 2005 to 2009. The major goals of the program were "completion of the International Space Station" and a " ...

and International Space Station Program in Houston through September 30, 2011. Also, USA signed a 2008 subcontract with

Alliant Techsystems Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK) was an American Aerospace manufacturer, aerospace and arms industry, arms manufacturer headquartered in Arlington County, Virginia. The company operated across 22 states, Puerto Rico, and internationally. ATK reven ...

for support of the Ares I launch vehicle. The company also changed its corporate logo at this time to de-emphasize the soon-to-be-defunct Space Shuttle program and to rebrand it to be a space operations company, choosing to replace the shuttle in the "A" to be a sun rising over the earth. In November 2010, United Space Alliance was selected by NASA for consideration for potential contract awards for heavy lift launch vehicle system concepts, and propulsion technologies.

Demise

The efforts of USA's management to identify new post-Shuttle business opportunities were ultimately not successful, and its owners

and

decided to wind down the joint venture. As of September 30, 2014, USA no longer held active contracts, and said that it would not pursue future contracts. However, USA announced that it would continue to operate in an administrative business capacity to manage government contract close-out requirements. Close-out of government contracts historically takes five to seven years. On December 20, 2019, the company was dissolved.

References

External links

United Space Alliance LLC
{{Authority control Aerospace companies Boeing Space Shuttle program International Space Station Lockheed Martin Companies based in Houston Brevard County, Florida Companies established in 1995 Commercial launch service providers Defunct companies based in Texas American companies disestablished in 2019

History

Search for role in the post-Shuttle era

Demise

See also

References

External links