One of the good guys in spaceflight, Tory Bruno, has resigned his post as Chief Executive Officer at United Launch Alliance. Bruno, 64, is leaving to pursue an unnamed opportunity at another company — which also was not named.

Bruno’s Leadership At United Launch Alliance

In his nearly twelve-year tenure, Bruno guided ULA through a sea change in the space industry: first and foremost, ULA lost its near-monopoly in launch services thanks to the rise of SpaceX. Secondly, it was essentially forced to retire its Atlas V rocket due to its Russian-built RD-180 engines on the booster.

Starting in 2024, ULA designed and built the Vulcan heavy-lift booster, with Bruno making the key decision to use Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine. At the time, that decision was a bit controversial: Blue Origin was an unproven company, the BE-4 was in mid-development, unqualified, and not yet in production or sold commercially. ULA and Bruno stuck to their guns, and Vulcan first launched in 2024, becoming the first company to achieve orbit with Methalox rocket engines in so doing.

The second launch of Vulcan slowed any momentum the company had. While CERT-2 was a successful mission, one of its GEM-64XL solid rocket boosters experienced an anomaly, resulting in the loss of its nozzle. The ascent continued despite this problem, with the booster burning longer than planned to compensate for the loss of thrust from the defective SRB.

After an investigation and subsequent certification of Vulcan by the US Space Force, ULA launched its first commercial mission aboard the new vehicle in August, which flew straight and true on its way to delivering the USSF-106 payload to orbit.

Bruno also lead the company through the crew-rating process of Atlas V, culminating with the launch of the Boeing Starliner Crewed Flight Test mission that launch in June, 2024. It was the first time that ULA had launched crew.

Bruno And Social Media

Tory Bruno has also been a semi-prolific poster on social media, giving updates during countdowns, reposting photos and videos and interacting with the space aficionado community, probably to his own vexation.

Bruno’s commentary will be missed, and personally, this writer hopes Tory continues posting on X and other platforms. Wherever his next destination is, he will surely have worthwhile opinions and updates on his horses.

Next For United Launch Alliance

ULA COO John Elbon was named as the Interim CEO in a press release issued today. John Elbon is the chief operating officer for United Launch Alliance (ULA). Before his new role, Elbon was responsible for the operations of the Atlas, Delta, and Vulcan Centaur launch vehicle programs, including design, engineering, integration, production, quality assurance, and program management.

Before joining ULA, Elbon held the role of vice president and program manager for Boeing’s Commercial Programs. There, he oversaw Boeing’s work on NASA’s Commercial Crew Space Act Agreements, including leadership of the first two phases of the Commercial Crew Development program.