As one of the top launch service providers in the world, United Launch Alliance develops space launch vehicles that are used to offer launch services to a wide customer base comprised of NASA, US government agencies, and organizations, as well as several other space companies around the world.

The company, which is a joint venture between Boeing Defense, Space & Security, and Lockheed Martin Space systems, offers both commercial and international payload launch services. Some of the most notable launches carried out by the company include:

1. The USA-193, a military reconnaissance satellite for the United States military
2. Mexat-2, a communication satellite for the Mexican government
3. NROL-37, a military reconnaissance satellite for the US government

As one of the top space companies in the world, United Launch Alliance enjoys some lucrative contracts and partnerships with leading space brands such as NASA, Blue Origin, RUAG Space, and many others.

Logo & Branding

The ULA’s logo is typical of space brand logos in that it contains all the usual components: an arc or crescent to depict the Earth’s curvature or the path of an obit, a trajectory to represent movement towards the heavens, and the company’s name (and in this case, also its initials). On the company’s website, the logo drops the company’s name, usually in title-case rather than capital letters, for their tag-line “America’s Ride To Space”. So for sure, we fully understand which ULA it represents and what the company is all about.

Layout & Content

Because it was decided to use the blue color of the logo as the website background, the logo on the site had to drop its color scheme in place of plane white. And because the bright blue is somewhat overpowering, oldy-worldy rounded module boxes with white backgrounds are used to hold the content. Unlike Boeing and Lockheed Martin’s sites though, this overly templated format restricts the ULA from displaying mixed layouts that contain other visually appealing elements such as “hero image” graphics, large slideshows or illustrations.

Usability & SEO

Suprisingly the homepage meta title (seen in the browser tab and search results) lacks the brand’s tagline. And rather than writing meta descriptions, (or even generating automated ones from the fist sentence of each page) to appear in the search results, the ULA’s web designers opted to sneak a mention of their own services (Web Design and Programming by 352 Media Group) and their email address into the html code instead – as can be seen in the source code for every page. All is forgiven though, the site only has a handful of broken links.

Site Stats – 2017

Call to Action

Because all their business comes from other organizations in the space industry, there is little that the ULA wants members of the public to do apart from read the content and follow them on social media. So links to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and the rest are the main calls to action seen in the header and footer area.