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,” according to 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) chairs Robert Lightfoot and Kay Sears said in a statement.

Bruno’s resignation comes at a time when newer private spaceflight companies are increasingly driving the launch market. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has dramatically upped its launch cadence in recent years, and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is looking like a more serious player after the mostly successful inaugural missions of the New Glenn heavy-lift rocket.

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

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

Vulcan leveraged a number of parts from prior ULA rocket programs like Atlas and Delta in an attempt to keep costs down, though it bet on Blue Origin to provide the engines. The project suffered numerous delays before it finally lifted off for the first time in 2024 — one whole decade after development began.

During that same time frame, SpaceX became the world’s most dominant space launch provider, winning government contracts and taking on numerous private missions.

ULA’s Vulcan rocket has found customers in Amazon (for its Leo internet satellites) and space startup Astrobotic. And the company is looking to make the rockets more reusable, or even fly upgraded versions that could theoretically take heavier payloads to space.

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

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