United Launch Alliance shoots for higher profile

By Ann Schrader
The Denver Post

For a company that roars into space in a hard-to-miss cloud of smoke and flames, United Launch Alliance​ has flown under the radar.

The Centennial-based rocket company's payloads draw the attention, not necessarily the "rides" that get them there. For Michael Gass, ULA's chief executive, being the quiet partner is OK — "as long as it says somewhere that United Launch Alliance provided the rocket."

December will mark ULA's fifth anniversary, when former rivals Lockheed Martin and the Boeing Co. formed the 5 0/50 venture.

The market for the companies' rockets was shrinking, and they said the alliance was a way to save the federal government money on launches while providing both Lockheed's Atlas rockets and Boeing's Delta rockets.

To create the venture, about 370 people relocated from the Huntington Beach area of California where Boeing had its Delta facility. About 1,000 people worked on Lockheed's Atlas program at the Waterton Canyon facility in south Jefferson County. ULA also hired about 400 new employees, most from the Denver area.

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