CEO of SpaceX rival United Launch Alliance resigns

The CEO of SpaceX rival United Launch Alliance, Tory Bruno, has resigned after 12 years on the job “to pursue another opportunity.” depending on the company.

“We are grateful for Tory’s service to ULA and the country, and we thank him for his leadership,” United Launch Alliance (ULA) Presidents Robert Lightfoot and Kay Sears said in a statement.

Bruno’s resignation comes at a time when new private spaceflight companies are increasingly dominating the launch market. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has significantly increased its launch cadence in recent years, and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin looks like a more serious player after inaugural missions mostly successful of the New Glenn heavy rocket.

Now 20 years old, ULA was created by combining the space launch operations of defense contractors Boeing and Lockheed Martin. ULA was a major supplier to NASA and the Department of Defense until SpaceX came along and started winning contracts.

One of Bruno’s biggest projects during his tenure at ULA was overseeing the development of the joint venture’s next-generation rocket, Vulcan. This project had two main goals: to help ULA keep pace with SpaceX and to reduce the U.S. government’s reliance on Russian rockets to access space.

Vulcan leveraged a number of parts from previous ULA rocket programs, like Atlas and Delta, to try to reduce costs, while banking on Blue Origin to supply the engines. The project experienced numerous delays before being finally took off for the first time in 2024 – a full decade after development began.

During the same period, SpaceX became the world’s leading space launch provider, winning government contracts and taking on many private missions.

ULA’s Vulcan rocket found customers on Amazon (for its Leo internet satellites) and space startup Astrobotic. And the company is I’m looking to make rockets more reusableor even fly improved versions that could theoretically carry heavier payloads into space.

“It has been a great privilege to lead ULA in its transformation and bring Vulcan into operation. My work here is now complete and I will encourage ULA,” Bruno said in a post on X.

ULA has tapped its chief operating officer, John Elbon, to serve as interim CEO while the company searches for a permanent replacement.