The Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program sought to reduce the cost of military space missions by purchasing commercial launch services rather than launch-vehicle hardware, infrastructure, and operations support. The idea was to eventually eliminate the wide variety of expendable launch vehicles—Titan IV, Delta II, Atlas II, etc.—and have all defense payloads fly on one family of EELV rockets. That meant that the launchpads and payload interfaces would all need to be standardized, and the rockets would have to employ a modular design to accommodate different payloads. Standardization would also allow the contractor to use the same systems for commercial launches, and thereby achieve economies of scale that are not typical of military launch programs.
The Department of Defense awarded $30 million contracts to four companies in August 1995 and then $60 million follow-on contracts to two companies in December 1996 with the goal of ultimately selecting just one. This strategy was based on the assumption that the commercial market could not support two launch systems; however, by 1997, the situation had apparently changed. The worldwide demand for commercial launches into geosynchronous transfer orbit was expected to reach 30–40 per year.
Given this robust commercial market, the government decided to revise its acquisition strategy and allow two contractors to proceed to the engineering, manufacturing, and development phase and receive Initial Launch Service contracts. The Defense Department competitively awarded a $500 million agreement in October 1998 to develop the Delta IV system and signed a $1.36 billion contract for 19 launches. The Atlas V system also received $500 million for development and a $650 million contract for nine launches.
This cost-sharing arrangement provided only partial funding for the development of the two launch systems. The balance would come from the contractors themselves. In exchange, the contractors would retain ownership and control of all system designs and launch operations and could thus shape their development plans to support long-term corporate goals.
Along with this new acquisition strategy, the military had to rethink its traditional business approach and position itself more like a commercial customer. Consequently, EELV program managers adopted a new stance with regard to mission assurance, risk management, and overall program control. They replaced traditional government oversight with so-called insight, a project management style that allows in-line involvement but no actual direction.
No sooner had the Air Force changed its acquisition strategy than the environment changed again. First, the Delta III and Titan IV systems experienced significant failures in 1998 and 1999. As a result, the government formed a team, which included Aerospace, to investigate and evaluate potential systemic causes of failures across all launch systems. During the same period, the projected boom in the commercial market began to fizzle, drastically reducing the number of commercial missions that would occur before the first government missions, thereby diluting the risk reduction benefits that the government had anticipated.
As a result, additional mission-assurance steps were taken. For example, the Department of Defense allocated funds for a demonstration flight of the heavy-lift version of the Delta IV, scheduled for summer 2004. Such a demonstration was not originally necessary because the Delta IV was supposed to establish a track record with commercial launches before carrying any defense payload. The Department of Defense also revised its insight role to include more mission assurance. This was a significant step for Aerospace, which once again become a key contributor, providing launch verification and risk assessment for each mission.
—Pete Portanova