posted 10-03-2024 04:48 PM               

Vulcan to launch second certification mission

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan VC2S rocket will launch the second certification (Cert-2) mission from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.

The Cert-2 mission includes an inert payload and demonstrations associated with future Centaur V technologies. This is the second of two test flights required for ULA's certification process with the U.S. Space Force.

The Vulcan VC2S variant uses two BE-4 methane-fueled main engines provided by Blue Origin, two GEM 63XL solid rocket boosters sourced from Northrop Grumman, dual RL10C-1-1A engines on the Centaur V upper stage and a standard-length, 5.4m Out-of-Autoclave (OoA) payload fairing.

"We are coming up on a very important and exciting launch," said Tory Bruno, president and CEO of United Launch Alliance. "This is our second flight of Vulcan, which is also our second certification mission. This is really important to both our company and especially our customers, because this flight is necessary for us to begin flying national security space missions and there are already a pair of these in the pipeline that are vitally important to our country."

"Our original plan had been to fly Sierra Space's Dream Chaser vehicle, a really cool mission that we have been supporting for a number of years now. However, they're just not quite ready in this time frame and we have to proceed in order to clear the way for national security. Don't worry about Dream Chaser, we will circle back and fly them as soon as they're ready."

"In the meantime, we will be flying a mass simulator, sometimes called an inert payload, and fly a very similar trajectory to what we flew on Cert-1 and because we have that inert payload, we are also free to add a number of experiments and technology demonstrations that will help us with our enhanced upper stage plans in the future. This will allow us to have more performance to do more agile trajectories and insertions, especially for our national security space customer, as well as extend the duration of that upper stage, which is essential for a whole number of things that we will Do, both commercially and to contend with our country's challenges in space," he said.

posted 10-04-2024 08:23 AM               

United Launch Alliance Successfully Launches Second Vulcan Certification Flight

United Launch Alliance (ULA) ushers in a new era of space capabilities with the successful launch of its second certification flight (Cert-2) of the next generation Vulcan rocket on Oct. 4 at 7:25 a.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

"The success of Vulcan's second certification flight heralds a new age of forward-looking technology committed to meeting the ever-growing requirements of space launch and supporting our nation's assured access to space. We had an observation on one of our solid rocket boosters (SRB) that we are reviewing but we are overall pleased with the rocket's performance and had a bullseye insertion," said Tory Bruno, ULA's president and CEO. "Vulcan provides high performance and greater affordability while continuing to deliver our unmatched reliability and orbital precision for all our customers across the national security, civil and commercial markets."

The Cert-2 mission carried experiments and demonstrations associated with future capabilities of Centaur V, the world's highest-performing upper stage designed to further deliver on ULA's unrivaled legacy of reliability and precision. Centaur V provides 2.5 times the energy and 450 times the endurance of its predecessors, enabling the most complex orbital insertions within the most challenging and clandestine orbits.

"Vulcan is built with the strength of a national workforce whose unmatched dedication and innovation has modernized the very best of our industry-leading heritage," said Mark Peller, vice president of Vulcan Development. "The foundation of Vulcan's purpose-built design rests on the best of what we've learned from more than 120 combined years of launch experience with Atlas and Delta."

The Cert-2 mission served as the second of two certification flights required for the U.S. Space Force's certification process and ULA has now completed all requirements for certification. ULA continues to work closely with the U.S. Space Force as they take the next few weeks to review the data and compare it to ULA's first certification mission to ensure that the vehicle performed as expected and there are no additional items that need review. Once the evaluation is complete to the Space Force's standards, the Vulcan rocket will be certified to launch national security missions.

"The team will continue to modify our infrastructure as we work towards an accelerated launch cadence to meet our customers' manifest requirements while building off today's successful launch and developing future Vulcan upgrades, including SMART reuse plans for downrange, non-propulsive recovery of Vulcan engines," said Bruno.

ULA has sold more than 70 Vulcan launches to date, including 38 missions for Amazon's Project Kuiper and multiple national security space launch missions as the part of the country's Phase 2 launch procurement.