vulcan

rocket-report:-china-flies-reusable-rocket-hopper;-falcon-heavy-dazzles

Rocket Report: China flies reusable rocket hopper; Falcon Heavy dazzles

china, european space agency, falcon 9, falcon heavy, Firefly Aerospace, launch, rocket lab, rocket report, Science, Space, spacex, united launch alliance, vulcan / /
SpaceX's 10th Falcon Heavy rocket climbs into orbit with a new US government weather satellite.

Enlarge / SpaceX’s 10th Falcon Heavy rocket climbs into orbit with a new US government weather satellite.

Welcome to Edition 6.50 of the Rocket Report! SpaceX launched its 10th Falcon Heavy rocket this week with the GOES-U weather satellite for NOAA, and this one was a beauty. The late afternoon timing of the launch and atmospheric conditions made for great photography. Falcon Heavy has become a trusted rocket for the US government, and its next flight in October will deploy NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft on the way to explore one of Jupiter’s enigmatic icy moons.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Sir Peter Beck dishes on launch business. Ars spoke with the recently knighted Peter Beck, founder and CEO of Rocket Lab, on where his scrappy company fits in a global launch marketplace dominated by SpaceX. Rocket Lab racked up the third-most number of orbital launches by any US launch company (it’s headquartered in California but primarily assembles and launches rockets in New Zealand). SpaceX’s rideshare launch business with the Falcon 9 rocket is putting immense pressure on small launch companies like Rocket Lab. However, Beck argues his Electron rocket is a bespoke solution for customers desiring to put their satellite in a specific place at a specific time, a luxury they can’t count on with a SpaceX rideshare.

Ruthlessly efficient … A word that Beck returned to throughout his interview with Ars was “ruthless.” He said Rocket Lab’s success is a result of the company being “ruthlessly efficient and not making mistakes.” At one time, Rocket Lab was up against Virgin Orbit in the small launch business, and Virgin Orbit had access to capital through billionaire Richard Branson. Now, SpaceX is the 800-pound gorilla in the market. “We have a saying here at Rocket Lab that we have no money, so we have to think. We’ve never been in a position to outspend our competitors. We just have to out-think them. We have to be lean and mean.”

Firefly reveals plans for new launch sites. Firefly Aerospace plans to use the state of Virginia-owned launch pad at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility for East Coast launches of its Alpha small-satellite rocket, Aviation Week reports. The company plans to use Pad 0A for US military and other missions, particularly those requiring tight turnaround between procurement and launch. This is the same launch pad previously used by Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket, and it’s the soon-to-be home of the Medium Launch Vehicle (MLV) jointly developed by Northrop and Firefly. The launch pad will be configured for Alpha launches beginning in 2025, according to Firefly, which previously planned to develop an Alpha launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. Now, Alpha and MLV rockets will fly from the same site on the East Coast, while Alpha will continue launching from the West Coast at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.

Hello, Sweden… A few days after the announcement for launches from Virginia, Firefly unveiled a collaborative agreement with Swedish Space Corporation to launch Alpha rockets from the Esrange Space Center in Sweden as soon as 2026. Esrange has been the departure point for numerous suborbital and sounding rocket for nearly 50 years, but the spaceport is being upgraded for orbital satellite launches. A South Korean startup named Perigee Aerospace announced in May it signed an agreement to be the first user of Esrange’s orbital launch capability. Firefly is the second company to make plans to launch satellites from the remote site in northern Sweden. (submitted by Ken the Bin and brianrhurley)

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China hops closer to reusable rockets. The Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology (SAST), part of China’s apparatus of state-owned aerospace companies, has conducted the country’s highest altitude launch and landing test so far as several teams chase reusable rocket capabilities, Space News reports. A 3.8-meter-diameter (9.2-foot) test article powered by three methane liquid-oxygen engines lifted off from the Gobi Desert on June 23 and soared to an altitude of about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) before setting down successfully for a vertical propulsive touchdown on landing legs at a nearby landing area. SAST will follow up with a 70-kilometer (43.5-mile) suborbital test using grid fins for better control. A first orbital flight of the new reusable rocket is planned for 2025.

Lots of players … If you don’t exclusively follow China’s launch sector, you should be forgiven for being unable to list all the companies working on new reusable rockets. Late last year, a Chinese startup named iSpace flew a hopper rocket testbed to an altitude of several hundred meters as part of a development program for the company’s upcoming partially reusable Hyperbola 2 rocket. A company named Space Pioneer plans to launch its medium-class Tianlong 3 rocket for the first time later this year. Tianlong 3 looks remarkably like SpaceX’s Falcon 9, and its first stage will eventually be made reusable. China recently test-fired engines for the government’s new Long March 10, a partially reusable rocket planned to become China’s next-generation crew launch vehicle. These are just a few of the reusable rocket programs in China. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

Spanish launch startup invests in Kourou. PLD Space says it is ready to start construction at a disused launch complex at the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana. The Spanish launch startup announced this week a 10 million euro ($10.7 million) investment in the launch complex for its Miura 5 rocket, with preparations of the site set to begin “after the summer.” The launch pad was previously used by the French Diamant rocket in the 1970s and is located several miles away from the launch pads used by the European Ariane 6 and Vega rockets. PLD Space is on track to become the first fully commercial company to launch from the spaceport in South America.

Free access to space … Also this week, PLD Space announced a new program to offer space aboard the first two flights of its Miura 5 rocket for free, European Spaceflight reports. The two-stage Miura 5 rocket will be capable of delivering about a half-ton of payload mass into a Sun-synchronous orbit. PLD Space will offer free launch services aboard the first two Miura 5 flights, which are expected to take place in late 2025 and early 2026. The application process will close on July 30, and winning proposals will be announced on November 30. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)

Rocket Report: China flies reusable rocket hopper; Falcon Heavy dazzles Read More »

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Blue Origin joins SpaceX and ULA in new round of military launch contracts

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Playing with the big boys —

“Lane 1 serves our commercial-like missions that can accept more risk.”

–

Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket on the launch pad for testing earlier this year.

Enlarge / Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket on the launch pad for testing earlier this year.

After years of lobbying, protests, and bidding, Jeff Bezos’s space company is now a military launch contractor.

The US Space Force announced Thursday that Blue Origin will compete with United Launch Alliance and SpaceX for at least 30 military launch contracts over the next five years. These launch contracts have a combined value of up to $5.6 billion.

This is the first of two major contract decisions the Space Force will make this year as the military seeks to foster more competition among its roster of launch providers and reduce its reliance on just one or two companies.

For more than a decade following its formation from the merger of Boeing and Lockheed Martin rocket programs, ULA was the sole company certified to launch the military’s most critical satellites. This changed in 2018, when SpaceX started launching national security satellites for the military. In 2020, despite protests from Blue Origin seeking eligibility, the Pentagon selected ULA and SpaceX to continue sharing launch duties.

The National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program is in charge of selecting contractors to deliver military surveillance, navigation, and communications satellites into orbit.

Over the next five years, the Space Force wants to tap into new launch capabilities from emerging space companies. The procurement approach for this new round of contracts, known as NSSL Phase 3, is different from the way the military previously bought launch services. Instead of grouping all national security launches into one monolithic contract, the Space Force is dividing them into two classifications: Lane 1 and Lane 2.

The Space Force’s contract announced Thursday was for Lane 1, which is for less demanding missions to low-Earth orbit. These missions include smaller tech demos, experiments, and launches for the military’s new constellation of missile-tracking and data-relay satellites, an effort that will eventually include hundreds or thousands of spacecraft managed by the Pentagon’s Space Development Agency.

This fall, the Space Force will award up to three contracts for Lane 2, which covers the government’s most sensitive national security satellites, which require “complex security and integration requirements.” These are often large, heavy spacecraft weighing many tons and sometimes needing to go to orbits thousands of miles from Earth. The Space Force will require Lane 2 contractors to go through a more extensive certification process than is required in Lane 1.

“Today marks the beginning of this innovative, dual-lane approach to launch service acquisition, whereby Lane 1 serves our commercial-like missions that can accept more risk and Lane 2 provides our traditional, full mission assurance for the most stressing heavy-lift launches of our most risk-averse missions,” said Frank Calvelli, assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration.

Meeting the criteria

The Space Force received seven bids for Lane 1, but only three companies met the criteria to join the military’s roster of launch providers. The basic requirement to win a Lane 1 contract was for a company to show its rocket can place at least 15,000 pounds of payload mass into low-Earth orbit, either on a single flight or over a series of flights within a 90-day period.

The bidders also had to substantiate their plan to launch the rocket they proposed to use for Lane 1 missions by December 15 of this year. A spokesperson for Space Systems Command said SpaceX proposed using their Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, and ULA offered its Vulcan rocket. Those launchers are already flying. Blue Origin proposed its heavy-lift New Glenn rocket, slated for an inaugural test flight no earlier than September.

“As we anticipated, the pool of awardees is small this year because many companies are still maturing their launch capabilities,” said Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, program executive officer for the Space Force’s assured access to space division. “Our strategy accounted for this by allowing on-ramp opportunities every year, and we expect increasing competition and diversity as new providers and systems complete development.”

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lifts off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Enlarge / A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lifts off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Trevor Mahlmann/Ars Technica

The Space Force plans to open up the first on-ramp opportunity for Lane 1 as soon as the end of this year. Companies with medium-lift rockets in earlier stages of development, such as Rocket Lab, Relativity Space, Firefly Aerospace, and Stoke Space, will have the chance to join ULA, SpaceX, and Blue Origin in the Lane 1 pool at that time. The structure of the NSSL Phase 3 contracts allow the Pentagon to take advantage of emerging launch capabilities as soon as they become available, according to Calvelli.

In a statement, Panzenhagen said having additional launch providers will increase the Space Force’s “resiliency” in a time of increasing competition between the US, Russia, and China in orbit. “Launching more risk-tolerant satellites on potentially less mature launch systems using tailored independent government mission assurance could yield substantial operational responsiveness, innovation, and savings,” Panzenhagen said.

More competition, theoretically, will also deliver lower launch prices to the Space Force. SpaceX and Blue Origin rockets are partially reusable, while ULA eventually plans to recover and reuse Vulcan main engines.

Over the next five years, Space Systems Command will dole out fixed-price “task orders” to ULA, SpaceX, and Blue Origin for groups of Lane 1 missions. The first batch of missions up for awards in Lane 1 include seven launches for the Space Development Agency’s missile tracking mega-constellation, plus a task order for the National Reconnaissance Office, the government’s spy satellite agency. However, military officials require a rocket to have completed at least one successful orbital launch to win a Lane 1 task order, and Blue Origin’s New Glenn doesn’t yet satisfy this requirement.

The Space Force will pay Blue Origin $5 million for an “initial capabilities assessment” for Lane 1. SpaceX and ULA, the military’s incumbent launch contractors, will each receive $1.5 million for similar assessments.

ULA, SpaceX, and Blue Origin are also the top contenders to win Lane 2 contracts later this year. In order to compete in Lane 2, a launch provider must show it has a plan for its rockets to meet the Space Force’s stringent certification requirements by October 1, 2026. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are already certified, and ULA’s Vulcan is on a path to achieve this milestone by the end of this year, pending a successful second test flight in the next few months. A successful debut of New Glenn by the end of this year would put the October 2026 deadline within reach of Blue Origin.

Blue Origin joins SpaceX and ULA in new round of military launch contracts Read More »

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Rocket Report: Starship stacked; Georgia shuts the door on Spaceport Camden

atlas v, blue origin, Commercial space, human spaceflight, launch, rocket report, Science, Space, spaceport Camden, spacex, starliner, starship, united launch alliance, vulcan / /
On Wednesday, SpaceX fully stacked the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage for the mega-rocket's next test flight from South Texas.

Enlarge / On Wednesday, SpaceX fully stacked the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage for the mega-rocket’s next test flight from South Texas.

Welcome to Edition 6.44 of the Rocket Report! Kathy Lueders, general manager of SpaceX’s Starbase launch facility, says the company expects to receive an FAA launch license for the next Starship test flight shortly after Memorial Day. It looks like this rocket could fly in late May or early June, about two-and-a-half months after the previous Starship test flight. This is an improvement over the previous intervals of seven months and four months between Starship flights.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Blue Origin launch on tap this weekend. Blue Origin plans to launch its first human spaceflight mission in nearly two years on Sunday. This flight will launch six passengers on a flight to suborbital space more than 60 miles (100 km) over West Texas. Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’s space company, has not flown people to space since a New Shepard rocket failure on an uncrewed research flight in September 2022. The company successfully launched New Shepard on another uncrewed suborbital mission in December.

Historic flight … This will be the 25th flight of Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket, and the seventh human spaceflight mission on New Shepard. Before Blue Origin’s rocket failure in 2022, the company was reaching a flight cadence of about one launch every two months, on average. The flight rate has diminished since then. Sunday’s flight is important not only because it marks the resumption of launches for Blue Origin’s suborbital human spaceflight business, but also because its six-person crew includes an aviation pioneer. Ed Dwight, 90, almost became the first Black astronaut in 1963. Dwight, a retired Air Force captain, piloted military fighter jets and graduated test pilot school, following a familiar career track as many of the early astronauts. He was on a short list of astronaut candidates the Air Force provided NASA, but the space agency didn’t include him. Dwight will become the oldest person to ever fly in space.

Spaceport Camden is officially no more. With the stroke of a pen, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed a bill that dissolved the Camden County Spaceport Authority, Action News Jax reported. This news follows a referendum in March 2022 where more than 70 percent of voters rejected a plan to buy land for the spaceport on the Georgia coastline between Savannah and Jacksonville, Florida. County officials still tried to move forward with the spaceport initiative after the failed referendum, but Georgia’s Supreme Court ruled in February that the county had to abide by the voters’ wishes.

$12 million for what?… The government of Camden County, with a population of about 55,000 people spent $12 million on the Spaceport Camden concept over the course of a decade. The goal of the spaceport authority was to lure small launch companies to the region, but no major launches ever took place from Camden County. State Rep. Steven Sainz, who sponsored the bill eliminating the spaceport authority, said in a statement that the legislation “reflects the community’s choice and opens a path for future collaborations in economic initiatives that are more aligned with local needs.” (submitted by zapman987)

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Polaris Spaceplanes moves on to bigger things. German startup Polaris Spaceplanes says it is progressing with construction of its MIRA II and MIRA III spaceplane prototypes after MIRA, a subscale test vehicle, was damaged earlier this year, European Spaceflight reports. The MIRA demonstration vehicle crash-landed on a test flight in February. The incident occurred on takeoff at an airfield in Germany before the vehicle could ignite its linear aerospace engine in flight. The remote-controlled MIRA prototype measured about 4.25 meters long. Polaris announced on April 30 that will not repair MIRA and will instead move forward with the construction of a pair of larger vehicles.

Nearly 16 months without a launch … The MIRA II and MIRA III vehicles will be 5 meters long and will be powered by Polaris’s AS-1 aerospike engines, along with jet engines to power the craft before and after in-flight tests of the rocket engine. Aerospike engines are rocket engines that are designed to operate efficiently at all altitudes. The MIRA test vehicles are precursors to AURORA, a multipurpose spaceplane and hypersonic transporter Polaris says will be capable of delivering up to 1,000 kilograms of payload to low-Earth orbit. (submitted by Jay500001 and Tfargo04)

Rocket Report: Starship stacked; Georgia shuts the door on Spaceport Camden Read More »

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With payload questions, it’s likely Vulcan will not launch again until fall

Space, vulcan / /

LLAP —

United Launch Alliance may seek certification from the Space Force after one flight.

–

The first Vulcan rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Enlarge / The first Vulcan rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

After the impressive debut of the Vulcan rocket in January, it is unclear when the heavy lift vehicle will fly again. The uncertainty is due to a couple of factors, including the rocket’s readiness and, perhaps more critically, what will fly on top of it.

United Launch Alliance, which assembles and launches the Vulcan rocket, has long maintained that it would launch the Dream Chaser spacecraft for Sierra Space on the rocket’s second mission. This would allow the rocket company to obtain enough data about the performance of Vulcan to earn certification for national security payloads.

An indication of the emphasis the company has put on earning certification from the Space Force—launching military payloads is the primary justification for the existence of Vulcan—comes from the names it chose for the first two launches, Cert-1 and Cert-2.

But what happens if the payload is not ready for Cert-2, as increasingly looks likely to be the case?

Chasing Dreams

After a long development period, Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser vehicle is making credible progress toward the launch pad. It is currently undergoing environmental testing at a NASA facility in Ohio, including vibration tests.

On NASA’s internal schedule for missions to the International Space Station, the Dream Chaser mission to supply cargo to the orbiting laboratory currently has a “planning” date of September. However, this is not a firm date and is subject to slippage.

In fact, there is skepticism within the space agency about a fall launch. According to one source, during a recent meeting to integrate planning for space station activities, there were significant inconsistencies in the schedule that Sierra Space officials laid out for NASA.

It is possible that Dream Chaser will not be ready to launch until 2025, and then its flight will be subject to the space station schedule, which must coordinate arriving crew and cargo vehicles from SpaceX, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and Russia.

Vulcan wants to fly sooner

United Launch Alliance would very much like to fly the Vulcan rocket sooner, in order to exit the certification phase and begin flying contracted missions for the US Space Force. Immediately after the Cert-1 mission, the launch of an Astrobotic lunar lander on January 8, the company was keeping open the possibility of a spring launch.

The company planned to set aside 60 days to review data from the “Cert-1” certification mission. If the data looked good from that flight, the plan was to move into preparations for the next launch. United Launch Alliance Vice President Gary Wentz said the earliest opportunity to launch the Cert-2 mission was “April-ish.”

As is commonplace in the launch industry, that schedule proved optimistic. However, given that Vulcan appeared to perform very well on its debut launch, a midsummer target seems realistic for the rocket’s readiness. That leaves three or four months to complete production of the core stage, which still lacks engines.

“The pacing item in our supply chain is the BE-4,” United Launch Alliance chief executive Tory Bruno said about Vulcan during a conference call with reporters in March. The BE-4 rocket engines, two of which power Vulcan’s first stage, are manufactured by Blue Origin. “The reason the BE-4 is a little bit behind everyone else is because it took a little bit longer to get it developed and finished. It is now. We have wonderful facilities at the BE-4 factory in Huntsville, which was just built and expanded, they literally doubled their factory size to do this. So they have to catch up now to everyone else in building ahead.”

United Launch Alliance did not respond to a request for comment for this story about the Vulcan rocket’s readiness or a potential shuffling of the launch manifest. A source said the company is willing to wait until September to launch Dream Chaser. But if the vehicle is not ready by then, Vulcan will likely seek out alternatives.

One-flight certification

Two sources said United Launch Alliance had asked Space Systems Command, the Los Angeles-based unit responsible for military access to space, for at least a partial certification of Vulcan based on data from its initial launch. This would potentially allow Vulcan to carry national security payloads on its second flight or perhaps Defense Innovation Unit payloads such as Blue Origin’s DarkSky-1 mission.

A spokesperson for Space Systems Command declined to respond to questions from Ars about an expedited certification process.

Previously, Col. Douglas Pentecost of the Space Force said United Launch Alliance had chosen the Vulcan certification path requiring the least amount of launches: two. By contrast, Blue Origin has agreed to a three-flight certification process, which requires less paperwork. There is also a six-flight option and even a 14-flight option for certification. The latter option essentially means that if your rocket flies 14 times, it earns certification.

Nevertheless, there is a precedent for a single-flight certification. In 2018, the Air Force agreed to certify SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket after its debut launch in February of that year. That decision was controversial enough that it generated a review by the Department of Defense Inspector General, which found that the military had “generally complied” with its procurement rules.

It’s worth noting, however, that the Falcon Heavy did not carry a military payload on its next two flights. The initial certification appears to have been conditional on the success of the next two commercial missions.

With payload questions, it’s likely Vulcan will not launch again until fall Read More »

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After its impressive first flight, here’s what’s next for the Vulcan rocket

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The business end of the Vulcan rocket performed flawlessly during its debut launch.

Enlarge / The business end of the Vulcan rocket performed flawlessly during its debut launch.

United Launch Alliance

Early Monday morning, the hefty Vulcan rocket streaked into orbit for the first time, nailing its performance targets and delivering a substantial success to United Launch Alliance on the vehicle’s first test flight.

Unfortunately for the mission’s primary customer, Astrobotic, there was subsequently an issue with the lunar lander’s propulsion system. However, Astrobotic was quick to clear Vulcan of any blame, saying the payload was delivered into the planned lunar trajectory without issue. “There is no indication that the propulsion anomaly occurred as a result of the launch,” Astrobotic said.

Vulcan’s debut was much-anticipated in the US launch community because the rocket provides a potentially viable competitor to the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets flown by SpaceX. The US Space Force, in particular, has been waiting on Vulcan to fly dozens of payloads into orbit.

So now that Vulcan has flown once, what’s next?

Next up, Dream Chaser

Just ahead of the launch, two vice presidents with United Launch Alliance, Mark Peller and Gary Wentz, held a teleconference with reporters to address the future of Vulcan.

United Launch Alliance, or ULA, has set aside the next 60 days to review data from the “Cert-1” certification mission that launched on Monday morning, they said. If the data looks good from that flight, the company will move into preparations for the next launch. Wentz said the earliest opportunity to launch this Cert-2 mission is “April-ish.”

The BE-4 rocket engines that will power this Vulcan are in final acceptance testing at Blue Origin’s facilities in West Texas, the officials said. The Vulcan core stage and Centaur upper stage are also in final assembly in ULA’s main factory in Decatur, Alabama. The hardware readiness should be capable of supporting an April launch.

The second Vulcan launch will carry the Dream Chaser spacecraft into orbit for Sierra Space. The winged vehicle will fly a cargo mission that carries supplies to the International Space Station for NASA. After more than a decade of development, Dream Chaser is undergoing final tests. However, there remain some questions about when it will be ready for its debut launch.

The Dream Chaser mission does not have a specific launch date on NASA’s internal schedule, but it shows a potential docking with the International Space Station for 45 days during a period between early April and mid-June. The docking port for the mission will not be needed by other spacecraft this year, so ULA and Sierra Space have some flexibility with the launch date.

After its impressive first flight, here’s what’s next for the Vulcan rocket Read More »

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ULA’s Vulcan rocket shot for the Moon on debut launch—and hit a bullseye

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The first Vulcan rocket fires off its launch pad in Florida.

Enlarge / The first Vulcan rocket fires off its launch pad in Florida.

United Launch Alliance

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida—Right out of the gate, United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan rocket chased perfection.

The Vulcan launcher hit its marks after lifting off from Florida’s Space Coast for the first time early Monday, successfully deploying a commercial robotic lander on a journey to the Moon and keeping ULA’s unblemished success record intact.

“Yeehaw! I am so thrilled, I can’t tell you how much!” exclaimed Tory Bruno, ULA’s president and CEO, shortly after Vulcan’s departure from Cape Canaveral. “I am so proud of this team. Oh my gosh, this has been years of hard work. So far, this has been an absolutely beautiful mission.”

This was a pivotal moment for ULA, a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. The Vulcan rocket will replace ULA’s mainstay rockets, the Atlas V and Delta IV, with lineages dating back to the dawn of the Space Age. ULA has contracts for more than 70 Vulcan missions in its backlog, primarily for the US military and Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband network.

The Vulcan rocket lived up to the moment Monday. It took nearly a decade for ULA to develop it, some four years longer than anticipated, but the first flight took off at the opening of the launch window on the first launch attempt.

Standing 202 feet (61.6 meters) tall, the Vulcan rocket ignited its two BE-4 main engines in the final seconds of a smooth countdown. A few moments later, two strap-on solid rocket boosters flashed to life to propel the Vulcan rocket off its launch pad at 2: 18 am EST (07: 18 UTC).

On the money

The BE-4 engines and solid-fueled boosters combined to generate more than 2 million pounds of thrust, vaulting Vulcan off the launch pad and through a thin cloud layer. A little over a minute after launch, Vulcan accelerated faster than the speed of sound, then jettisoned its strap-on boosters to fall into the Atlantic Ocean.

Then it was all BE-4. Each of these engines can produce more than a half-million pounds of thrust, consuming a mixture of liquified natural gas—essentially methane—and liquid oxygen. They are built by Blue Origin, the space company founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos. This was the first time BE-4s have flown on a rocket.

Rob Gagnon, ULA’s telemetry commentator, calmly called out mission milestones. “BE-4s continue to operate nominally… Vehicle is continuing to fly down the center of the range track, everything looking good… Nice and smooth operation of the booster.”

The BE-4s fired for five minutes, then shut down to allow Vulcan’s first stage booster to fall away from the rocket’s hydrogen-fueled Centaur upper stage. Two RL10 engines ignited to continue the push into orbit, then switched off as the upper stage coasted over the Atlantic and Africa. A restart of the Centaur upper stage 43 minutes into the flight gave the rocket enough velocity to send Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander toward the Moon.

The nearly 1.5-ton spacecraft separated from Vulcan’s Centaur upper stage around 50 minutes after liftoff. “We have spacecraft separation, right on time,” Gagnon announced.

With Astrobotic’s lander deployed, a third engine firing on the Centaur upper stage moved the rocket off its Moon-bound trajectory and onto a course into heliocentric orbit. “We have now achieved Earth escape,” Gagnon said.

The spent rocket stage will become a human-made artificial satellite of the Sun. A plate on the side of the Centaur upper stage contains small capsules holding the cremated remains of more than 200 people, a “memorial spaceflight” arranged by a Houston-based private company named Celestis.

ULA’s Vulcan rocket shot for the Moon on debut launch—and hit a bullseye Read More »

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Navajo objection to flying human ashes to the Moon won’t delay launch

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The Moon sets over sandstone formations on the Navajo Nation.

Enlarge / The Moon sets over sandstone formations on the Navajo Nation.

Science instruments aren’t the only things hitching a ride to the Moon on a commercial lunar lander ready for launch Monday. Two companies specializing in “space burials” are sending cremated human remains to the Moon, and this doesn’t sit well with the Navajo Nation.

The Navajo people, one of the nation’s largest Indigenous groups, hold the Moon sacred, and putting human remains on the lunar surface amounts to desecration, according to Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren.

“The sacredness of the Moon is deeply embedded in the spirituality and heritage of many Indigenous cultures, including our own,” Nygren said in a statement. “The placement of human remains on the Moon is a profound desecration of this celestial body revered by our people.”

Last month, Nygren wrote a letter to NASA and the Department of Transportation, which licenses commercial space launches, requesting a postponement of the flight to the Moon. The human remains in question are mounted to the robotic Peregrine lander, built and owned by a Pittsburgh-based company named Astrobotic, poised for liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on top of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket.

This is the second time a US spacecraft has gone to the Moon with human remains aboard. In 1998, NASA’s Lunar Prospector mission launched with a small capsule containing the ashes of Eugene Shoemaker, a pioneer in planetary geology. NASA intentionally crashed spacecraft into the Moon in 1999, leaving Shoemaker’s ashes permanently on the surface.

At that time, officials from the Navajo Nation objected to the scattering of Shoemaker’s ashes on the Moon. NASA promised to consult with tribal officials before another spacecraft flew to the Moon with human remains. A big part of Nygren’s recent complaint was the lack of dialogue on the matter before this mission.

“This act disregards past agreements and promises of respect and consultation between NASA and the Navajo Nation, notably following the Lunar Prospector mission in 1998,” Nygren said in a statement. He added that the request for consultation is “rooted in a desire to ensure that our cultural practices, especially those related to the Moon and the treatment of the deceased, are respected.”

An oversight

Officials from the White House and NASA met with Nygren on Friday to discuss his concerns. Speaking with reporters after the meeting, Nygren said he believes it was an oversight that federal officials didn’t meet with the Navajo Nation at an earlier stage.

“I think being able to consult into the future is one of the things that they’re going to try to work on,” he told reporters Friday. While Nygren said that was good to hear, “we were given no reassurance that the human remains were not going to be transported to the Moon on Monday.”

Removing the human remains would delay the launch at least several weeks. It would require removing Astrobotic’s lunar lander from the top of the Vulcan rocket, taking it back to a clean room facility, and opening the payload fairing to provide access to the spacecraft.

“They’re not going to remove the human remains and keep them here on Earth where they were created, but instead, we were just told that a mistake has happened, we’re sorry, into the future we’re going to try to consult with you,” Nygren said.

“We take concerns expressed from the Navajo Nation very, very seriously,” said Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA’s science directorate. “And we think we’re going to be continuing this conversation.”

Buu Nygren, president of the Navajo Nation.

Enlarge / Buu Nygren, president of the Navajo Nation.

Astrobotic’s mission is different from Lunar Prospector in one important sense. The Peregrine lander is privately owned, while Lunar Prospector was a government spacecraft. NASA has a $108 million contract with Astrobotic to deliver the agency’s science payloads to the Moon as a commercial service. Astrobotic’s mission is the first time a US company will attempt to land a commercial spacecraft on the Moon.

While Nygren argues that NASA’s role as Astrobotic’s anchor customer should give the agency some influence over decision-making, the government’s only legal authority in overseeing the mission is through the Federal Aviation Administration.

The FAA is responsible for ensuring commercial launches, like the Vulcan rocket flight Monday, don’t put public safety at risk. The launch licensing process also includes an FAA review to ensure a launch would not jeopardize US national security, foreign policy interests, or international obligations.

“For our own missions … NASA works to be very mindful of potential concerns for any work that we’ll do on the Moon,” Kearns said. “In this particular case … NASA really doesn’t have involvement or oversight.”

Navajo objection to flying human ashes to the Moon won’t delay launch Read More »

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As Vulcan nears debut, it’s not clear whether ULA will live long and prosper

Science, Space, ula, vulcan / /

ULA LLAP —

This marks an absolutely pivotal moment for the 20-year-old launch company.

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United Launch Alliance hoists the Certification-1 payloads atop the Vulcan rocket in the Vertical Integration Facility adjacent to Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Enlarge / United Launch Alliance hoists the Certification-1 payloads atop the Vulcan rocket in the Vertical Integration Facility adjacent to Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

United Launch Alliance

It’s nearly time. After years of delays, billions of dollars in federal funding, and a spectacular second-stage explosion, the large and impressive Vulcan rocket is finally ready to take flight.

United Launch Alliance’s heavy lift vehicle underwent its final review on Thursday, and the company cleared the rocket for its debut flight. With weather looking favorable, the Vulcan rocket is on track to lift off at 2: 18 am ET (7: 18 UTC) on Monday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The mission’s primary payload is a lunar lander built by Astrobotic, and the launch will be streamed live here.

This marks an absolutely pivotal moment for the 20-year-old launch company, which has gone from the titan of the US launch industry to playing a distant second fiddle to its one-time upstart competitor SpaceX. Last year, SpaceX launched 98 rockets. United Launch Alliance, or ULA, tallied just three. The owners of ULA, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, are also on the cusp of selling the launch company if they can find a buyer willing to pay the right price. And critically, for the first time, ULA will be flying a new vehicle it designed and developed on its own—a rocket with some but not a majority of its heritage from the legacy Atlas and Delta rockets that have flown since the Cold War.

So yeah, it’s a moment.

A little history

A quarter of a century ago, two of America’s largest aerospace contractors, Lockheed and Boeing, were the national leaders in providing launch services for the US military and many of NASA’s science missions. But they struggled to capture commercial satellite launches in an emerging market. Lockheed, with its Atlas rockets, and Boeing, with its Deltas, could not compete with Europe-based Arianespace and Russia on price. So the two US contractors doubled down on their competition for US government launch contracts.

The competition grew ugly, with allegations that Boeing stole rocket designs from Lockheed. The US Department of Justice began investigating how Boeing acquired tens of thousands of pages of trade secrets belonging to Lockheed Martin. There were lawsuits, and then questions about whether Boeing’s rocket business was viable. Military officials began to worry that if Boeing stopped flying the Delta, their only pathway into space would be through a Russian engine—the RD-180 that powered Lockheed’s Atlas V.

To ensure it had redundant access to space on two different rocket families, the military stepped in and arranged a shotgun marriage. The Department of Defense brokered a deal in which Lockheed and Boeing would merge their rocket-building ventures into one company, United Launch Alliance, in 2005. The parents retained a 50 percent ownership stake, and to sweeten the pot, the military agreed to pay a subsidy of about $1 billion a year.

Everything seemed to be working out well until SpaceX started launching rockets.

A little rivalry

ULA had tried to kill the baby. When SpaceX sought a launch site for its Falcon 9 rocket at Cape Canaveral in 2007, the parents lobbied the Air Force brass hard to stop the lease of Space Launch Complex-40 to Elon Musk and his rocket company. But the commander of the 45th Space Wing with oversight of Cape Canaveral, Gen. Susan Helms, approved the lease anyway.

Since then, ULA and SpaceX have been uneasy bedfellows in Florida, working side by side at nearby launch pads. Some of the rivalry was good-natured. Every week, for a while, engineers from SpaceX and ULA would meet up at Hogan’s Irish Bar in Cape Canaveral for trivia night. They would vie for nerd supremacy, drinking Guinness and blowing off steam.

But there have been more difficult confrontations. Musk kept pointing out the $1 billion subsidy at Congressional hearings—ULA officials bristled at the characterization of this ELC payment as a subsidy, but in effect, that’s what it was—and arguing that SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket could fly many of the military’s missions for much-reduced prices.

The issue came to a head in 2014, when the Air Force and ULA announced a new agreement for 36 national security launches to be flown during the remainder of the decade. ULA’s chief executive at the time, Mike Gass, hailed this “block buy” agreement because it would save the government $4.4 billion. Musk seethed. By then, his Falcon 9 rocket had launched eight times, all successfully. He sued the US government to stop the block buy and open up competition for the Falcon 9.

Several months into the lawsuit, SpaceX and the Air Force entered mediation. As part of the settlement, the military agreed to accelerate the certification of the Falcon 9 rocket and open up a number of the block buy launches to competition. SpaceX launched its first national security payload in 2017. SpaceX has not really looked back since.

Jeff Bezos (right), the founder of Blue Origin and Amazon.com, and Tory Bruno, CEO of United Launch Alliance, display a small-scale version of the BE-4 rocket engine during a press conference in 2014.

Enlarge / Jeff Bezos (right), the founder of Blue Origin and Amazon.com, and Tory Bruno, CEO of United Launch Alliance, display a small-scale version of the BE-4 rocket engine during a press conference in 2014.

As Vulcan nears debut, it’s not clear whether ULA will live long and prosper Read More »

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ULA chief says Vulcan rocket will slip to 2024 after ground system issues

rockets, Science, Space, ula, Uncategorized, vulcan / /

ULA delay —

The Colorado-based launch company will end 2023 with just three launches.

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ULA's Vulcan rocket rolls to the launch pad for testing.

Enlarge / ULA’s Vulcan rocket rolls to the launch pad for testing.

United Launch Alliance

United Launch Alliance will not see the debut of its next-generation Vulcan rocket in 2023, as previously planned.

The launch company’s chief executive, Tory Bruno, announced the delay on the social media site X on Sunday. United Launch Alliance had been working toward a debut flight of the lift booster on Christmas Eve, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Bruno made the announcement after the company attempted to complete a fueling test of the entire rocket, known as a wet dress rehearsal.

“Vehicle performed well,” Bruno wrote. “Ground system had a couple of (routine) issues, (being corrected). Ran the timeline long so we didn’t quite finish. I’d like a FULL WDR before our first flight, so XMAS eve is likely out. Next Peregrine window is 8 Jan.”

Peregrine is the rocket’s primary payload, a lunar lander built by Astrobotic that is intended to deliver scientific experiments for NASA and other payloads the Moon. It has specific launch windows in order to reach the Moon and attempt a landing during ideal lighting conditions.

From the information contained in Bruno’s comment, it appears as though the work to correct the ground systems to fuel Vulcan—the first stage propellant is methane, which United Launch Alliance has not worked with before—will take long enough that it will preclude another fueling test ahead of the rocket’s late December launch window. Thus, the next launch attempt will likely occur no earlier than January 8.

A light cadence

It has been a slow year for United Launch Alliance, which dominated the US launch industry a decade ago. The company is going to launch just three rockets this calendar year: the classified NROL-68 mission on a Delta IV Heavy rocket in June, the “Silentbarker” mission for the National Reconnaissance Office on an Atlas V in September, and two Project Kuiper satellites for Amazon on an Atlas V in October.

That is the company’s lowest total number of launches since its founding in 2006, when the rocket businesses of Lockheed Martin and Boeing were merged.

Part of the reason for the low total is that United Launch Alliance is undergoing a transition from its historical fleet of Delta and Atlas rockets to Vulcan, which is intended to be more price competitive with other commercial offerings, such as SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. There will be a lot of demand for Vulcan once it starts flying regulary.

However, another factor is that the lower cost and equally reliable Falcon rockets have taken commercial and government launch business away from United Launch Alliance. SpaceX has steadily ascended over the last decade as United Launch Alliance has struggled to compete.

Whereas Bruno’s company launched just three rockets in 2023, on a handful of occasions SpaceX has launched three rockets in three days during this calendar year. SpaceX is likely to end the year with between 95 and 100 total launches.

ULA chief says Vulcan rocket will slip to 2024 after ground system issues Read More »