United Launch Alliance (ULA)’s nearly 10 years of planning, design, assembly, and testing are about to culminate with the first launch of the Vulcan rocket. The launch vehicle’s first flight is scheduled for Monday, January 8 at 2:18 a.m. ET (07:18 UTC) from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
The fully assembled rocket emerged from the vertical integration facility around 10:40 a.m. ET on Friday and made the approximately 500-meter journey to the launch pad. After the 61.6-meter (202-foot) tall rocket completed its flight, the ULA team spent the rest of the day testing the umbilical that fuels the rocket for leaks and inspecting the guidance and flight termination systems. .
That’s how we roll. #trytimelapse #vulcanrocket pic.twitter.com/3bz9LgMZ0r
— Tory Bruno (@torybruno) January 5, 2024
Inside, the primary payload, Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar module, awaits flight to the moon. Peregrine was hoisted atop the rocket on December 20 inside a 15.5-meter (51-foot)-long payload fairing manufactured by Beyond Gravity. Centaur 5’s upper stage will travel into heliocentric orbit around the sun on the Celestis Memorial Spaceflight’s “Enterprise Flight.”
Mark Peller, ULA’s vice president of Vulcan development, said the pending launch is a defining moment for many within ULA.
“It’s very exciting. For most people, this is one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, and many people end their careers without ever having this opportunity,” Peller said. Told. “This has been a challenging but extremely satisfying process and has greatly helped ULA develop internal capabilities to bring new products to market.”
A variant of the VC2S, this version of the Vulcan rocket is 61.6 meters (202 ft) tall and was originally powered by two Northrop Grumman GEM 63XL solid rocket boosters and two Blue Origin methane/oxygen-fueled BE-4s. It is powered by a combination of engines. . The upper stage is powered by two HE RL10C-1-1A engines provided by Aerojet Rockedyne, burning a combination of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.
Starting in 2025, Centaur 5 will use the upgraded RL10C-X engine, which is currently being developed and tested by Aerojet Rocketdyne, about 240 miles south of the Cape near West Palm Beach, Florida. ing.
There will be a flurry of activity over the next few days. On Sunday, the countdown to launch will begin with the power-up of the Vulcan rocket at 3:00 pm ET (2000 UTC), 11 hours before liftoff. The launch facility will be evacuated at L-6 hours (8:00 p.m. ET, 1:00 a.m. UTC), and cooling of the supply lines will begin one hour later prior to refueling.
Vulcan carries 454,000 kg (1 million pounds) of propellant, a combination of methane, liquid oxygen, and liquid hydrogen. When fully fueled, it weighs 663,367 kg (1,462,474 lb).
Gary Wentz, ULA’s vice president of government and commercial programs, said tamping will be completed at L-2 hours (12 a.m. ET, 5 a.m. UTC). During Friday’s media conference call about Mission, Wentz was asked about a more detailed schedule but did not go into further details.
This will be the first time a major U.S. rocket has been introduced without the launch company providing a countdown timeline to the news media. ULA also restricted media access to the rocket’s countdown audio and video until the final hour of the countdown, when the propellant loading process was completed.
“This is a flight test. This is our first test. We had some leeway in our initial timelines, but over time those timelines change and we provide more detailed information as we go through the process.” I imagine information will come out,” Wentz said. “But right now, we have some margin built into the schedule, so we’re going to work through it.”
Wentz said T-7 minutes is scheduled for a 60-minute wait during which the launch team will assess technical readiness.
The launch is currently scheduled for January 8th at 2:18 a.m. (07:18 ET), but ULA has multiple backup opportunities.
- January 8th – 2:18am EST / 0718 UTC (45 minute time slot)
- January 9th – 12:15am EST / 0515 UTC (9 minute time slot)
- January 10th – 12:12am EST / 0512 UTC (1 minute time frame)
- January 11th – 12:14am EST / 0514 UTC (3 minute time slot)
Wentz said the time variation is caused by a combination of “orbital mechanics and whether we can rendezvous for the moon.”
“As you go through the flow, the number of consecutive attempts depends on how far you want to count, assuming delays due to weather, etc., and how much consumables/household items you actually spend in the scrubbing process,” says Wentz. said.
He added that if none of these dates work out, the next launch opportunity will open up on January 23.
Ready for flight
ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno announced a partnership with Blue Origin to acquire the BE-4 engine to power the new rocket’s booster stage. Approximately seven months later, on April 13, 2015, Vulcan was officially announced to the world. The switch from Russia’s RD-180 engine used in the Atlas 5 rocket was made under pressure from the US Congress following Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea.
The rocket was scheduled to debut in 2019, but development was delayed for years, and delivery of the BE-4 engine itself was also delayed. At a Friday press conference, Astrobotic CEO John Thornton said ULA’s tradition of a 100 percent mission success rate since its founding in 2006 was a big reason they chose Vulcan as their space vehicle. He said that.
“Even though the Vulcan has a new name, it’s actually an upgraded Atlas 5, so we’re very comfortable with that,” Thornton said. “They have been a great partner for us over the years in developing this capability in parallel with rocket development.”
Thornton added that they are also operating on a tight budget and will need to find creative ways to pay for the flight to the moon. He said the risk of being on Vulcan’s debut flight helped that a lot.
“We chose United Launch Alliance to fly Vulcan for the first time because we have great faith in United Launch Alliance and are very confident that this mission will be a success. ,” Thornton said. “And, of course, it comes with price relief, which makes this mission possible.”
Thornton did not elaborate on how much Astrobotic paid for the ULA flight, but NASA said Astrobotic paid five payloads to the lunar surface as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Service (CLPS) program. The company is paying $108 million. This was an increase from his original $79.5 million for 14 NASA payloads. NASA’s Joel Kearns said the additional costs are due to supply chain impacts caused by COVID-19 and changes to the landing site in 2022, and the payloads will be flown on other CLPS missions.
Wentz added that Vulcan is primarily a series of upgrades and variants of legacy hardware, which ULA believes will help foster further confidence.
“The only hardware that did not fly before this flight is the BE-4 engine. All others, or variants thereof, have flown on either Atlas or Delta flights on missions for other customers. ” Wentz said. “That gave NASA and him confidence that we could deliver this to support Astrobotic’s mission.”
Preparing for what happens next
This first launch of ULA’s Vulcan rocket is an important proving ground for the company for a highly significant mission that is part of the U.S. Space Force’s National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program. Vulcan must complete two certification flights before starting his first NSSL mission.
After the Hayabusa flight ticks the box for Cert-1, ULA aims to launch Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser spaceplane to the International Space Station on a Cert-2 mission. Peller said that after Cert-1’s launch, they will have 60 days to review the data and see if they are ready to move forward.
They hope to launch the Cert-2 mission around April, a month that currently sees the launch of another ULA mission to the ISS, the crew flight test mission for Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. It is scheduled. It is unclear whether both missions will launch within the same month.
Wentz said ULA currently has six Vulcan flights scheduled for 2024, of which four non-certified flights will all be NSSL missions. In addition to this, the company also plans to fly nine Atlas 5 rockets and the last Delta 4 Heavy rocket.
“Next year, this rate will increase to a total of approximately 28 launches per year,” Wentz said. “We are also introducing a secondary capability that allows vertical integration of a second vehicle in parallel. And once that capability is installed, flight rates will increase.”