United Launch Alliance is focusing on September 16 for the second take a look at flight of the brand new Vulcan rocket, and a flawless mission might lastly set the stage for the primary Vulcan launch for the US navy by the top of the yr.
The US House Power has contracted ULA’s Vulcan rocket to launch the vast majority of the navy’s area missions over the subsequent few years. Pentagon officers are keen for Vulcan to get flying to allow them to begin checking off a backlog of 25 navy area missions the House Power needs to launch by the top of 2027.
By any measure, the primary Vulcan launch in January was a convincing success. On its debut flight, the brand new rocket delivered a industrial lunar lander to an on-target orbit. The following Vulcan mission, which ULA calls Cert-2, would be the rocket’s second certification flight. The House Power requires ULA to finish two profitable flights of the Vulcan rocket earlier than entrusting it to launch nationwide safety satellites.
When the rubber hits the street
The stress on ULA to finish the second Vulcan take a look at flight was robust sufficient for the longtime navy launch supplier, a 50-50 three way partnership between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, to announce final month that it’ll launch the subsequent Vulcan rocket with out a actual payload. The spacecraft ULA needed to launch on the Cert-2 mission was the industrial Dream Chaser spaceplane developed by Sierra House. However Dream Chaser will not be able to launch in September and will not fly till subsequent yr.
As a substitute of incomes income on the Cert-2 mission, ULA will fly a dummy payload, or a mass simulator, contained in the nostril cone of the subsequent Vulcan rocket. Tory Bruno, ULA’s CEO, referred to as the corporate’s resolution “certification at our personal expense.”
Two sources advised Ars that ULA plans to launch the second Vulcan rocket on September 16 from Cape Canaveral House Power Station, Florida. However because the launch date is almost two months out, do not be shocked if there are some minor changes to the schedule.
In June, ULA delivered the second Vulcan rocket to Cape Canaveral from its manufacturing unit in Alabama to bear last processing earlier than stacking it on a cell launch platform subsequent month. One factor that should occur earlier than then is the subsequent launch of ULA’s present workhorse rocket, the Atlas V, slated for July 30.
The Atlas V is absolutely stacked inside ULA’s Vertical Integration Facility at Cape Canaveral and can roll out of the hangar to the launch pad a few days earlier than liftoff. That is one in all 16 Atlas V rockets left in ULA’s stock. Bruno mentioned ULA is on observe to complete manufacturing the remaining Atlas V rockets by the top of this yr, permitting the corporate to transform ground area in its rocket manufacturing unit to ramp up manufacturing of Vulcan launch automobiles.
As soon as the Atlas V is off the bottom later this month, the hangar can be clear to permit ULA to start assembling items of the second Vulcan rocket. Floor groups plan to conduct a countdown rehearsal in August, throughout which the launch group will load liquid methane, liquid hydrogen, and liquid oxygen propellants into the Vulcan rocket.
For subsequent Vulcan flights, ULA will not have to carry out the countdown rehearsal, Bruno advised reporters final month.
A lot of the remaining Atlas V rockets are assigned to missions for Amazon’s Challenge Kuiper broadband constellation and astronaut missions on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. The Atlas V flight scheduled for July 30 would be the final Atlas V to launch a mission for the US House Power. It should even be ULA’s one centesimal nationwide safety mission total because the firm’s founding in 2006 with the merger of the legacy launch companies of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
US navy and intelligence companies have been the first prospects for ULA, which operated the Delta IV and Atlas V rockets till the Delta IV’s retirement earlier this yr.
If all goes in response to plan, ULA may very well be ready to launch its a hundred and first nationwide safety mission by the top of the yr utilizing a Vulcan rocket. This mission, designated USSF-106, will launch an experimental demonstration satellite tv for pc right into a near-geosynchronous orbit for the Air Power Analysis Laboratory to check next-generation satellite tv for pc navigation applied sciences.
