9.11.2023
United Launch Alliance begins final preparations for debut launch of Vulcan
United Launch Alliance recently announced they are targeting to launch its new Vulcan rocket on Christmas Eve and are in the midst of final preparations.
The first stage of the Vulcan rocket was stacked onto the Vulcan Launch Platform on October 26th, with both GEM 63XL solid rocket side boosters installed on October 31st and November 6th.
This comes as the Centaur V 2nd stage was finished with reinforcements following an anomaly on a different Cenaur V earlier in the year on a test stand. ULA loaded up the reinforced Centaur V onto its R/S Rocket Ship, which is currently making its way down the Mississippi River and will arrive at Port Canaveral in the coming days.
With the announcement of the launch date, the rocket’s first payload, Astrobotics Peregrine lunar lander was shipped down to Florida for integration onto the 2nd stage adapter and eventual encapsulation in the fairing.
Once the 2nd stage arrives back in Florida, it will be attached to the Vulcan first stage and ULA will conduct a Wet Dress Rehearsal and then move the rocket back to the Vertical Integration Facility for the payload to be attached. The rocket already completed a successful static fire earlier this year, with a short firing of the BE-4 engines at Space Launch Complex 41.
The debut launch of Vulcan has been a long time coming for United Launch Alliance as they make moves to catch up to SpaceX. ULA has been working toward multiple launch attempts over the past year, but with delays from Blue Origin and their BE-4 engines, they were forced to wait and then delayed even further due to the 2nd stage anomaly.
Those delays have caused 1 payload meant for the inaugural flight to be moved from the Vulcan to the Atlas V with Amazon’s Kuiper internet constellation satellite prototypes launching last month on the Atlas V and with all of the other Atlas V rockets being claimed by other payloads and the Delta IV Heavy retiring after its next two flights, ULA needs to ensure that the rocket performs flawlessly on the Certification 1 mission and is capable of launching National Security missions safely for the U.S. Government, its primary payload provider for the time being.
With all that being said, ULA is closer than ever to launching Vulcan this year after many, including myself, didn’t expect to see it fly until early 2024.
What do you think? Will Vulcan fly this year or be delayed into 2024?
Quelle: TESLARATI
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Update: 16.11.2023
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ULA chief on the Vulcan rocket: “The path to flight one is clear”
"We are expecting Blue to keep up with us."
United Launch Alliance is closing in on the debut flight of the Vulcan rocket, and it remains on track to fly the vehicle for the first time on December 24.
During a media roundtable on Wednesday afternoon, the chief executive of United Launch Alliance, Tory Bruno, said, “The path to flight one is clear" for Vulcan. The last major piece of hardware for the rocket, the Centaur V upper stage, arrived at Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Monday. All of the qualification testing necessary for the first flight, including for the upper stage, is complete.
In the coming days, Bruno said the Centaur upper stage would be integrated with the Vulcan first stage. Then, the combined vehicle will be rolled to the launch site for a fueling test known as a wet dress rehearsal in December. However, the rocket's main engines, BE-4s provided by Blue Origin, will not be fired. That's because the first stage already completed this hot fire test successfully in June.
Bruno said United Launch Alliance, or ULA, has some margin in its schedule as it works toward a launch at 1:49 am ET on Christmas Eve. If the weather is poor, the company also has launch opportunities on December 25 and 26 before the closure of the launch window this year. The "Certification 1" mission would then have another launch opportunity during the first half of January.
As its primary payload, the Certification 1 mission will carry a lunar lander built by Astrobotic, which will attempt to make a soft touchdown on the Moon early next year.
Waiting for Vulcan
Vulcan has been a long time coming. ULA has been developing the rocket for more than a decade as it sought to build a heavy lift rocket to replace its fleet of Atlas and Delta rockets. The change was driven by two major needs. One, the company needed a rocket more cost-competitive with SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy boosters. And two, the US Congress mandated that ULA end its reliance on the Russia-made engines that power the Atlas V rocket.
The big rocket was originally due to launch in 2020 but has slipped due to several issues, including the prolonged development process of the BE-4 rocket engine as well as a serious accident with the Centaur V upper stage in March this year.
As the delays have mounted, ULA has faced increasing pressure from the US Space Force to begin flying Vulcan, as it is slated to fly about two dozen national security missions in the next five years. Before it can do that, however, Vulcan must complete two certification flights and provide data to the military. The first of these is the Astrobotic flight, and the second mission will launch Sierra Space's Dream Chaser spacecraft. During Wednesday's teleconference, Bruno declined to set a specific target for that flight, mentioning only that it probably will take place during the first half of next year.
Going for lots of missions
Bruno said ULA has sold 70 Vulcan launches, a tally that consists of about one-half military missions and one-half commercial flights. The primary customer for the commercial launches is Amazon, which is eager to begin putting its Project Kuiper broadband Internet satellites into low-Earth orbit.
As a result, ULA is seeking to scale up production of the Vulcan rocket to reach a cadence of two launches a month by the end of 2025. That seems rather ambitious and might be asking a lot of suppliers, including engine manufacturer Blue Origin. Bruno, however, said the management challenges of that scaling are being worked on.
"We are expecting Blue to keep up with us, and we're working very, very hard to do that," he said. "So far, so good."
Quelle: arsTechnica
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Update: 29.11.2023
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1st Vulcan Centaur rocket will fly DNA samples of CEO, 'Star Trek' crew
The DNA of United Launch Alliance Tory Bruno, and wife Rebecca, will see their DNA soar to deep space Dec. 24.
A new United Launch Alliance rocket will now send its CEO's DNA into space alongside an already announced memorial for "Star Trek".
Memorial space burial company Celestis Inc. plans to fly the DNA of United Launch Alliance (ULA) CEO Tory Bruno, along with the DNA of his wife Rebecca, on the first-ever mission for the Vulcan Centaur rocket on Dec. 24.
The Brunos' genetic material joins dozens of files, cremated remains, and DNA samples of its "passengers." Prominent among previous announcements are several "Star Trek" luminaries, including Nichelle Nichols (Uhura on The Original Series or TOS), DeForest Kelley (Bones on TOS), James Doohan (Scotty on TOS), series creator Gene Roddenberry, and Roddenberry's wife Majel Barrett Roddenberry (a recurring "Star Trek" actor). Douglas Trumbull, a visual effects wizard for movies "2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (1977), also joins many others bound for interplanetary space.
Celestis' mission, appropriately called Enterprise after the iconic "Star Trek" ship, will launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Florida's Space Coast. ULA was founded in 2006 as a joint alliance between Lockheed Martin Corp. and Boeing Co, and this target date will be their shiny new rocket's maiden spaceflight.
Also onboard the deep space mission inside sealed capsules, as reported back on Presidents' Day in February, will be the remains of four U.S. presidents: George Washington, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan.
Tory and Rebecca Bruno are both career rocket scientists and if the rocket goes on time, the occasion also marks their 38th wedding anniversary. Bruno has been ULA's CEO since 2014, and has helped develop multiple defense and space launch systems over the past four decades.
"This is such an amazingly unique opportunity, and we are thankful to fly with such distinguished people," Bruno said in a press statement.
In addition to Celestis' memorial payload, Vulcan Centaur will also be carrying Astrobotic's Peregrine moon lander, which will be gently nudged on its path towards a lunar encounter. Then, Vulcan's upper stage will zoom off into a heliocentric (sun-centered) orbit, where it shall be (appropriately) renamed Enterprise Station.
"Tory and Rebecca will be joining more than 200 participants from 35 nations aboard this mission of purpose — creating humankind's deepest outpost in the solar system," Charles M. Chafer, Celestis cofounder and CEO, said in the same statement.
Quelle: SC
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Update: 8.12.2023
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Behind the scenes: ULA prepping Vulcan rocket for inaugural launch on Christmas Eve
Dwarfed in scale, Mark Peller stood at the base of United Launch Alliance's new red-and-white Vulcan rocket, which towered far above his head like a 20-story cylindrical monolith.
"You look back here, that's the base of the rocket. And there's the nozzles for the solid rocket motor, the one closest to us. Beyond that, you'll see our two booster engines, the BE-4s. And beyond that is the other solid rocket burner," pointed out Peller, who is ULA's vice president of Vulcan development.
"So this is the complete rocket, less the payload," Peller said.
Engineered to be bigger, more powerful and cheaper to build and fly, the next-generation Vulcan will replace ULA’s aging Atlas V rocket and soon-to-be-retired Delta IV Heavy rocket. Coupled with a Centaur upper stage, Peller said the Vulcan can accommodate a variety of missions and customers — the rocket can be outfitted with up to six solid rocket boosters for extra liftoff thrust.
The Vulcan's historic inaugural test flight mission is scheduled for launch at 1:49 a.m. EST on Christmas Eve. Similar late-night backup attempts are available on Christmas and Dec. 26, should delays arise.
ULA invited FLORIDA TODAY for an exclusive look at the rocket Tuesday afternoon at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The Vulcan stood nestled within the company's towering Vertical Integration Facility, a 286-foot-tall industrial-looking rectangular structure surrounded by silent scrub and swamplands near the northern terminus of Titan III Road.
Railroad tracks lead from the VIF another ⅜-mile northward to Launch Complex 41, which crews spent years retrofitting from an Atlas V-centric facility to accommodate the larger Vulcan. This morning, working in tandem, a pair of yellow Trackmobile heavy-duty railcar movers slowly wheeled the new rocket atop its custom-built launch platform to Complex 41.
Thursday, Peller said ULA crews will test the new rocket during an important "wet dress rehearsal," where engineers will proceed through the launch countdown until seconds before liftoff. Peller described this rehearsal as "an all-day affair." Technicians will later attach the 51-foot-tall nose cone.
After liftoff and stage separation, the rocket's Centaur upper stage will carry Astrobotic's Peregrine commercial moon lander into a highly elliptical orbit more than 220,000 miles above Earth.
Selected by NASA to collect research before astronauts return to the lunar surface, the autonomous Peregrine lander is expected to touch down and operate on the moon for about 10 days until the sun sets — and temperatures plummet from roughly 100 degrees Celsius “down to liquid-nitrogen cold,” Astrobotic CEO John Thornton said. (Each lunar day on the slowly rotating moon lasts 29½ Earth days, NASA reports.)
“The vehicle has a new name, but much of the vehicle is actually the Atlas V. So it’s a well-proven vehicle in that sense," Thornton said of Vulcan during a Nov. 29 NASA teleconference.
"Yes, this one’s got some new engines and other pieces to it. We are very confident on that launch. But I can tell you, I’ll be at the edge of my seat on that launch," Thornton said.
Vulcan backlog of 70+ future launches
During a Nov. 15 media roundtable, ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno said ULA has already racked up a backlog of 70-plus future Vulcan launches that climbs into the billions of dollars.
By the end of 2025, Bruno said he hopes his company is launching two Vulcans per month.
“Vulcan has been actually one of the more orderly and well-executed development programs that I’ve worked on in my very long career in the aerospace industry,” he said.
Don Platt, director of the Florida Institute of Technology's Spaceport Graduate Center in Titusville, considers the Vulcan "very important for the future of ULA, from the perspective of lowering the costs."
“It's going to try to compete more successfully with SpaceX, from a ULA perspective. The Atlas V has been highly reliable, but of course it’s much more expensive than a SpaceX launch. And so, we've seen a huge increase in the number of customers — both from the government perspective and commercial — using SpaceX,” Platt said.
On that note, Platt said the Vulcan program will provide America additional launch capability for the future beyond SpaceX, in addition to employing workers on the Space Coast.
"I don't think the government or anyone in the U.S. wants to rely totally on just one company for access to space. I think we definitely don't want to get into that situation. So it's very important from multiple perspectives," Platt said.
Vulcan 'wet dress rehearsal' set for Thursday
The Vulcan's debut launch date was postponed after a Centaur upper stage exploded in March during testing at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. A hydrogen leak created a crack in the Centaur's 18-foot diameter tank, an investigation revealed.
In June, the Vulcan rocket roared to life on its Cape Canaveral launch pad for the first time during a "flight readiness firing." Crews ignited the rocket's twin Blue Origin-built BE-4 engines for roughly six seconds while powerful restraining mechanisms held the rocket in place. Each engine produces 550,000 pounds of thrust at sea level.
Next, Peller said the Vulcan's "wet dress rehearsal" — a key pre-launch exercise — will take place Thursday on the launch pad to validate the rocket's readiness.
"We do everything we do on day of launch, except start the engines and launch the rocket," Peller said.
"We power up the vehicle. We check it out. We load all the propellants on both stages. Then we do all the final checks of the flight control systems, the propulsion systems, and make sure they're ready for launch. And then we actually do the final countdown," he said, noting that crews will "hold" just before reaching T-0.
"So it's a final validation of the readiness of the rocket to launch. Giving us confidence that when we do go on the 24th in that instantaneous window, we don't have any hiccups that would cause us to miss that small opportunity," he said.
ULA 'extremely excited' for launch
Vulcan’s first mission is nicknamed Cert-1. It will serve as the first of two test flights for certification to carry future Space Force national security payloads. Peller said the second certification mission should launch late in the first quarter of 2024.
"That whole engagement with the Space Force started years ago when we first started to develop Vulcan. So they've been kind of embedded in our engineering team, kind of looking over our shoulder as we go through this whole process," he said.
Peller said it is unheard of for "a brand-new rocket before it's flown" to rack up a backlog of 70-plus upcoming missions, citing ULA's previous track record.
"This is the culmination of many, many years of work by the entire ULA team, as well as a whole team of industry partners. So it's extremely exciting for all of us here to be on the verge of launch — to be on the verge of ushering in this new era for ULA and for space launch," Peller said, standing next to the Vulcan.
"A lot of hard work by thousands of people across this country. In particular, a lot of hard work by people down here on the Space Coast getting the rocket ready, getting all the facilities ready to support this initial launch," he said.
Quelle: Florida Today
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Update: 6.01.2024
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VULCAN TO LAUNCH FIRST CERTIFICATION MISSION (CERT-1)
A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan VC2S rocket will launch the first certification mission from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. The Cert-1 flight test includes two payloads. The first is the Peregrine Lunar Lander, Peregrine Mission One (PM1) for Astrobotic as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative to deliver science and technology to the lunar surface. The second payload is the Celestis Memorial Spaceflights deep space Voyager mission known as the Enterprise Flight.
Launch Date and Time: Jan. 8, 2024 at 2:18 a.m. ET
GO Vulcan! GO Centaur! GO Cert-1!
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The inaugural Vulcan has arrived at its Cape Canaveral pad for Monday's Certification-1 launch to begin a new era in American access to space.
Photo by United Launch Alliance
The VLP has been lowered onto the launch pad piers, accomplishing the "harddown" milestone at 11:33 a.m. EST.
Over the next few hours today, umbilical connections will be made with launch pad systems, the environmental control system feeding conditioned air to the rocket and payload will be switched to facility supplies to allow the portable trailers used during rollout to be unplugged and moved away.
The launch countdown will begin Sunday afternoon, leading to a liftoff on Monday at 2:18 a.m. EST (0718 UTC).
The payload complement for the Certification-1 (Cert-1) flight test includes the Astrobotic Peregrine commercial lunar lander headed for the Moon and a Celestis Memorial Spaceflight Payload carried into deep space.
Peregrine will be the first private American spacecraft to be launched as part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative to deliver science and technology experiments to the lunar surface. The Celestis payload includes cremated remains of the creator and beloved stars of the original Star Trek television series and DNA samples of former U.S. presidents.
Quelle: ULA
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Update: 8.01.2024
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Start von ULA Vulcan rocket for Moon lander launch
Quelle: ULA