SpaceX and U.S. Air Force reach settlement on rocket program

SpaceX wrote that it had come to an agreement with the Air Force over a lawsuit alleging unfair bidding for launch services under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program (EELV). The program “provides the US affordable, reliable, and assured access to space with two families of launch vehicles: Atlas V and Delta IV.”
 
This is according to the Air Force, which awarded a contract in late 2013 for the launch vehicles to United Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The settlement, SpaceX said, “improves the competitive landscape and achieves mission assurance for national security space launches.” Earlier this week, SpaceX announced a $1 billion investment by Google and Fidelity that valued the company at $10 billion. Last April, SpaceX protested the ULA contract, alleging it had not been permitted to compete for the government contract, which it said, “was granted to ULA on a sole-source basis without any competition from other launch providers.”