NATIONAL HARBOR, MD. – SpaceX is getting close to certification for military launches, perhaps as soon as the start of December, the new head of Air Force Space Command said today.

"Like every American, I love competition. I love entrepreneurs who take chances and put out the risk," Gen. John Hyten told an audience at the Air Force Association's Air and Space conference Tuesday. "And I want you to know I root for SpaceX to come into the competition."

"The certification of SpaceX, hopefully by December the first, is a big event," he said. "But if they're not ready on December the first, we have to stand up and say that."

For some time, Air Force officials have said SpaceX certification could come by the end of this year, so while plausible, the Dec. 1 date would be somewhat optimistic for the certification process.

Speaking later in the day, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James noted that "aggressive" date.

"What I know about this is: Of course there is a certification process, and the target time's you have heard for when SpaceX will hopefully be ready is anywhere from the end of the year into the first quarter of next year," James said.

"I didn't hear specifically what Gen. Hyten said today but that sounds a little bit aggressive," James added. "It's sort of a window for when we were all hoping the certification could occur."

The certification process for launch under the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program has been a time consuming process for SpaceX, one the company has derided as unnecessarily laborious. The Air Force has countered that the process is working itself out and was a necessary process to ensure secure military launch.

Still, despite the disagreements — including SpaceX's move to sue the Air Force over the awarding of a block-buy of launches to competitor United Launch Alliance — the service has maintained that SpaceX is likely to be certified sooner rather than later.

That doesn't mean the service is just going to give SpaceX the go-ahead without doing its due diligence, though.

"Certification is not a done deal. It's not done until it's done," James said. "There are gateways that need to be passed through, there are data that must be analyzed and we must assure ourselves that a new entrant like SpaceX can do the mission and do it in the right way."

SpaceX got some good news today when NASA announced it had downselected both the Elon Musk-backed company and competitor Boeing for its next-generation commercial crew competition.

The contract, which awards SpaceX $2.6 billion, gives two things the upstart company will enjoy: an infusion of cash and an infusion of legitimacy that the company passed certification standards that James notes are tougher than those of the Air Force. However, that will not have any direct impact on the military's certification process.

"The only thing that will make SpaceX certifiable for the types of missions we have in the EELV program is to come through the certification process that we have laid out," James said.

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