For eight years now, space fans -- and space investors -- have waited patiently for the arrival of United Launch Alliance's new Vulcan Centaur, the rocket that will replace ULA's workhorse "Atlas" and "Delta" rocket families and carry ULA into the 21st Century. Vulcan was originally expected to begin flying in 2021, but a combination of COVID-19 and production delays at engine supplier Blue Origin have pushed the rocket's first flight back a bit.  

But on May 4, 2023 -- "May the Fourth," a date dear to the hearts of sci-fi fans -- Vulcan Centaur will finally fly.

Anticipation!

Or so says Tory Bruno, CEO of the Boeing (BA 1.51%) and Lockheed Martin (LMT 1.23%) rocket-launching joint venture that is United Launch Alliance.

Chatting with reporters late last month, Bruno bravely penciled in an exact date for the first launch, not just "May," but "May 4," and things are looking propitious for ULA to hit that target. Blue Origin has already delivered the two BE-4 rocket engines that will drive Vulcan to orbit, and ULA is performing final qualification tests on the engines now. ULA also expects the payloads for this first flight, which include a Peregrine lunar lander from Astrobotic and also two KuiperSats from Amazon.com (AMZN -1.65%), to be ready for loading atop the Vulcan in time for the May 4 launch.

And yet, Bruno's launch date revelation was actually his least interesting announcement.

Rocket launches, and more rocket launches

In what feels like an expression of confidence about the May 4 date, Bruno predicted ULA would launch a second Vulcan rocket just months after the first. This second launch will carry a Sierra Space Dream Chaser spaceplane to orbit, so Sierra can begin delivering supplies to the International Space Station -- a mission it's been waiting seven years to execute.

And then ULA wants to launch a third time before the year is done, ending the year with a military satellite launch for the U.S. Space Force.

Even more launches after that

Even then, Vulcan will just be getting started. Last year, if you recall, ULA signed a megacontract to conduct nearly four dozen launches for Amazon, helping build Amazon's Project Kuiper satellite internet constellation. To meet its Amazonian obligations, as well as execute all its other contracts, ULA must rapidly ramp its launch tempo -- to the point that, by 2025, ULA expects to be sending a new Vulcan to orbit "every two weeks," says Bruno.  

Last month, Ars Technica called this "a cadence unprecedented in the history of United Launch Alliance." To hit its ambitious goal, ULA must launch 26 times per year, as opposed to, for example, the mere eight launches it managed in 2022, the five times it launched in 2021, the six times it launched in 2020, or the five times it launched in 2019.  

ULA's got high hopes

See the pattern? For the past half-decade, ULA launches have numbered in the single digits per year. Over its entire history, ULA has never launched more than 16 times in a year. And that was in 2009, before SpaceX began competing with ULA.

Now ULA aims to improve its best-ever pre-competition-from-SpaceX record by 10 complete launches? And to triple last year's number? Suffice it to say that's ambitious.

And yet, ULA may pull it off.

What Boeing, Lockheed, and Amazon investors need to know

Key to ULA's long-term ambitions is an idea first floated in 2016. After delivering their cargo to orbit, Vulcan rockets will detach their engines and parachute them to Earth -- where ULA will snag them mid-freefall with helicopters, to be reused to launch more rockets.

For Bruno, this engine recovery plan remains the long-term goal. In the short term, for ULA to build all the rockets that Amazon wants to buy as quickly as Amazon wants them, ULA must rely less on aerial acrobatics and more on brute force production. Thus it will churn out Vulcan chassis wholesale, launch them one after the other, allow their engines to burn up in the atmosphere -- and rebuild them from the ground up.

Unfortunately for Amazon, this is the most expensive way to do rocketry. Thus, Amazon investors can expect launching their Project Kuiper satellites to cost more, for example, than SpaceX pays to launch its own Starlink satellites -- making Amazon's internet service relatively more expensive and less profitable.

For Boeing and Lockheed, though -- ULA's two joint venture partners -- mass production of rockets may actually give a small boost to historical profit margins. The reason is that, if heretofore ULA has been building just a handful of rockets per year, it's now about to shift to mass production. This increase in production scale may permit it to buy rocket parts in bulk -- and at a discount.

If this turns out to be the case, investors should see the benefit first in Lockheed's financials. (Unlike Boeing, Lockheed breaks out its space business numbers for easy examination). According to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence, "space" is Lockheed's least profitable division, with an 8.8% operating profit margin. As investors, we'll want to see that number inch up as Vulcan operations get underway.

Stay tuned, and we'll let you know how this plays out.