SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, and ULA have been the NSSL providers through Phase 2, while Blue Origin, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has been pitching its New Glenn rocket for NSSL missions.

Phase 3, Lane 1 is to include emerging providers for “commercially addressable orbits,” while Phase 3, Lane 2 envisions awards–possibly soon — to three providers “who meet all NSSL orbits and unique mission requirements,” SSC has said.

Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration Frank Calvelli has called for stiffening practices to hold space contractors and subcontractors accountable, and the new NSSL solicitation prohibits any awards to companies on the Space Contractor Responsibility Watch List (CRWL) — a list whose members, if any, the Department of the Air Force has not revealed.

Section 1612 of the fiscal 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, P.L. 115-91, mandated creation of the CRWL. The latter is to contain an SSC watch list of contractors “with a history of poor performance on space procurement contracts or research, development, test, and evaluation space program contracts,” such as award fee scores below 50 percent. The CRWL is also to include companies with significant “financial concerns,” “felony convictions or civil judgements,” and “security or foreign ownership and control issues.”