In an announcement extremely anticipated by United Launch Alliance and others within the spaceflight neighborhood, the U.S. House Power’s Assured Entry to House (AATS) workplace affirmed that the Vulcan rocket is now totally licensed to launch nationwide safety payloads.
The completion of this multi-year course of implies that the united states’s House Methods Command can start launching Nationwide Safety House Launch (NSSL) missions on the two-stage, heavy-lift rocket.
“Assured entry to area is a core perform of the House Power and a crucial aspect of nationwide safety,” stated Brig. Gen. Panzenhagen, Program Government Officer for AAST, in a press release. “Vulcan certification provides launch capability, resiliency, and suppleness wanted by our nation’s most important space-based programs.”
ULA and the U.S. Air Power solid a plan for the certification of Vulcan in September 2016. Years of growth led to the rocket first certification flight (Cert-1) in January 2024 when it launched the Peregrine-1 mission on behalf of Astrobotic and NASA’s Industrial Lunar Payload Companies (CLPS) program.
Initially, ULA needed to fly Sierra House’s Dream Chaser on its Cert-2 mission, however the winged spaceship wasn’t prepared in time. As a substitute, it pivoted to a launch in October carrying no payload to meet the necessity for a second certification flight.
It was throughout that flight that one of many rocket’s two strong rocket boosters, a Northrop Grumman GEM 63XL, skilled a burn by lower than a minute into flight, which resulted within the liberation of the nozzle. ULA was capable of full its mission as meant, however the anomaly resulted in a month’s lengthy investigation into the basis trigger.
ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno introduced the conclusion of that investigation throughout a media roundtable in Washington D.C. on March 12.
“We’ve got remoted the basis trigger, applicable corrective actions and people have been certified and confirmed in a full-scale static motor firing in Utah final month,” Bruno stated. “We’re again in persevering with to manufacture {hardware}.”
Bruno stated there was a producing defect in one of many inner components of the nozzle. ULA posted an almost 12-minute video on YouTube that walked by their analysis course of and confirmed a clip of the aforementioned static fireplace take a look at.
Along with the work throughout and following the 2 certification flights, ULA stated it additionally accomplished 52 certification standards, which included 60 payload interface requirement verifications and 18 subsystem design and take a look at evaluations.
“Thanks to all our buyer companions who’ve labored hand-in-hand with us all through this complete certification course of. We’re grateful for the collaboration and excited to succeed in this crucial milestone in Vulcan growth,” Bruno stated in a press release. “Vulcan is uniquely designed to fulfill the difficult necessities demanded by an increasing spectrum of missions for U.S. nationwide safety area launches. Furthermore, this next-generation rocket supplies excessive efficiency and excessive accuracy whereas persevering with to ship to our buyer’s most difficult and unique orbits.”
NSSL Part 2
The completion of Vulcan’s certification is a protracted awaited achievement for the U.S. authorities. In August 2020, SpaceX and ULA received contracts for the NSSL Part 2 program. Equally to Part 1, it divided the variety of nationwide safety payload missions over a sequence of order quantity years.
When the contract was established, the House and Missile Methods Heart (SMC), which later turned House Methods Command, divided the launches roughly 60-40, with ULA receiving the vast majority of these missions. When all was stated and achieved, ULA was assigned 26 mission and 23 went to SpaceX.
ULA launched its first NSSL Part 2 mission, USSF-51, on July 30, 2024, after switching from Vulcan to an Atlas 5 rocket. In a publish shared by Bruno to his LinkedIn web page, there are three Vulcan boosters at Cape Canaveral House Power Station.
Two of these are earmarked for the primary two NSSL Part 2 missions: USSF-106 and USSF-87. Following the forthcoming launch of Kuiper-1 on behalf of Amazon and its Undertaking Kuiper web constellation (utilizing an Atlas 5 rocket), ULA will launch the U.S.-106 mission from House Launch Advanced 41 (SLC-41).
In its assertion on Wednesday, SSC stated USSF-106 is anticipated to launch “this summer season.”
The timing of the Vulcan certification announcement aligns with statements made by SSC to Spaceflight Now in late December. At that time, an SSC spokesperson stated,“The federal government anticipates completion of its analysis and certification within the first quarter of calendar yr 2025.”
The spokesperson added that it anticipated the primary Vulcan NSSL mission to launch “within the second quarter 2025.” With the second quarter ending on June 30, ULA may be a couple of months from launching its first NSSL mission.
Nevertheless, that can rely on the readiness of the payload and if there are delays associated to the Kuiper-1 mission.
Bruno stated he additionally expects to be launching Vulcan rockets from Vandenberg House Power Base in California earlier than the tip of the yr.
