United Launch Alliance LLC, the joint space launch venture of Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing, has hired McLean, VA-based consulting firm Shank Public Policy for help with lobbying issues related to aerospace, budget and defense.
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ULA provides space launch services for U.S. government agencies such as the Department of Defense and NASA, as well as the U.S. Air Force, which relies on ULA's Atlas V vehicle to launch national security satellites. According to lobbying registration documents filed in December, Shank will represent the Centennial, CO-based company in Washington on “legislative issues regarding the development and use of space launch vehicles and rocket engines," which includes federal funding for those vehicles and engines.
ULA since 2014 has been in the process of developing a heavy-payload launch vehicle to succeed the Atlas V. That new launch system, the Vulcan, could see completion as early as 2019.
The space launch provider has sought a successor to the Atlas V, in part, because that launch vehicle relies on a Russian-built rocket engine, the RD-180. ULA in May hired government relations firm The Madison Group after Congress introduced legislation to reinstate a ban on Russian-built rocket engines, which is currently used by ULA to power its fleet of launch vehicles.
Shank Public Policy is led by John Shank, a former Boeing lobbyist who was also formerly a strategist at Podesta Group. Shank previously lead minority staffer for the Defense Subcommittee and Select Intelligence Oversight Panel with the House Appropriations Committee.
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