It’s hard to understate the extent of what was at stake in Monday’s early morning launch United Launch AllianceThe Vulcan Centaur rocket: multiple big reputations, billions of dollars, a new lunar lander, the country’s dreams of exploring the moon, brand-new rocket engines flying for the first time, and what the future of ULA quite literally is.
And ULA withdrew it. The company’s next-generation Vulcan Centaur rocket successfully lifted off in the early hours of Monday, with its primary payload, a lunar lander from… AstroboticAnd now it’s on its way to the moon.
The heavy rocket took off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Center at 2:18 a.m. EDT on Monday. The first stage, powered by two Blue Origin methane-fueled BE-4 engines, separates from the Centaur V upper stage at approximately 2:24.
The Centaur’s main engine was cut off about T+15 minutes. Centaur performed two more burns to put Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander on track to the Moon. With these missions completed, the lander, called Peregrine, will begin a month-and-a-half journey to the Moon. Peregrine takes a slightly longer route to the Moon, so it will have to perform a few more complex burns to maneuver in progressively lower lunar orbits. Ultimately, the spacecraft will attempt to land autonomously near an area called Gruithuisen Domes on February 23.
The launch and subsequent flight to the Moon is a watershed moment for both United Launch Alliance and Astrobotic. The predecessor company, a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, is envisioned as the future of ULA. The rocket is designed to replace the Atlas V and Delta IV Heavy, both of which are scheduled to be retired.
The rocket is also designed to compete with other launch providers, such as SpaceX, by offering a large payload and an adjustable configuration depending on the mission profile. Customers will therefore be able to choose between two payload sizes (51 or 70 feet long) and four standard configurations with zero, two, four or six solid rocket boosters, depending on the mission profile and customer requirements.
ULA has already sold a number of missions for the 202-foot-tall Vulcan, including 38 launches to Amazon to deploy part of Project Kuiper’s ambitious broadband satellite constellation. The launch company has also won more than twenty contracts with the United States Space Force (USSF), although it must complete one more launch before it can begin executing those launches.
If all goes as planned, ULA could implement the launch of the second certification, called Cert-2, as early as April. This mission will carry another high-profile, high-risk payload: Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser spaceplane, which will take a flight to the International Space Station. The remaining four missions on this year’s Vulcan manifest will all be for the US Navy.
ULA and Astrobotic aren’t the only ones with something to celebrate: This is also the first time Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines have seen flight, a triumph that comes after nearly a decade of development. While the Vulcan will be fully expendable initially, the ultimate goal is to recover the two engines in the air and reuse them to further reduce costs.
Astrobotic’s Peregrine is also the first lander to fly under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, an initiative to begin developing lunar delivery services from commercial providers. Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic received $79.5 million for the mission in 2019, a cost that was later increased to $108 million; Even if it can’t go on to land on the moon’s surface, it’s still a major proof of concept for NASA’s ambitious efforts to promote advanced space services from private industry.
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