United Launch Alliance launched its next-generation Vulcan rocket on Friday in the second of two “certification” test flights needed before the new launcher can be used to carry high-priority national security payloads for the U.S. Space Force and National Reconnaissance Office.
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Although one of the two solid-propellant strap-on boosters provided by Northrop Grumman appeared to experience some sort of anomaly while rising from the lower atmosphere, Vulcan was able to continue into orbit. It is not yet known how this issue may affect Vulcan’s certification, but ULA CEO Tory Bruno said the company will look into the matter.
“The orbit was nominal throughout,” he said during the company’s launch webcast. “But we have made observations of SRB 1, so we will look at that after the mission is complete.”
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Vulcan’s two Blue Origin-built BE-4 engines and twin solid rocket boosters (SRBs) thundered away at 7:25 a.m. EDT, shattering a still morning with the roar of 2 million pounds of thrust. .
The 202-foot-tall, 1.5 million-pound rocket, decorated with swirling red and white livery, took to the sky from Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and quickly accelerated in the less dense atmosphere. East trajectory.
The apparent booster anomaly can be seen in the long-range tracking camera view as sparks rain down and what appears to be debris falls from the right SRB. The booster’s exhaust plume changed dramatically, but the rocket was still able to ascend into space.
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Both strap-on boosters burned and were abandoned as planned 1 minute and 48 seconds after liftoff. The methane-burning BE-4s, each producing 550,000 pounds of thrust, continued to buoy in the lower atmosphere for about three minutes before shutting down their rockets.
The non-reusable stage broke away and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean, and the flight continued under the power of the Centaur 5 upper stage’s two Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10C engines.
The upper stage demonstrated the ability to restart in space by firing its engines a second time after reaching orbit. This is a key requirement for military payloads that require complex “high-energy” trajectories to reach operational orbits.
Vulcan First released on January 8th We successfully launched a commercially built lunar lander that took off without a hitch. For the second flight, ULA initially planned to launch Sierra Space’s winged cargo ship, Dream Chaser, on its maiden flight, but the spacecraft was not delivered on time.
Instead, ULA placed a dummy payload atop the Vulcan, a so-called “mass simulator,” added several technology demonstration experiments to enable extended flights, and installed additional instruments to record as much data as possible during the 54-minute demonstration. .
The “cert 2” mission “literally has one main goal: to make a second flight and have another success,” Bruno said before the launch. He added that assuming a review of flight data confirms good performance, “then we are ready to fly our national security payload.”
It is not yet known how the solid fuel booster issue could affect the data review and final certification of the rocket.
But two missions are planned for later this year, which Bruno described as “urgent.” He did not mention possible Space Force or NRO payloads, but national security missions typically launch satellites capable of optical and radar imaging, electronic eavesdropping, encrypted communications relay and other top secret payloads.
Because the Vulcan did not carry an active payload for its second flight, ULA added “more equipment that can be used to characterize the vehicle,” Bruno said.
“We’re putting in all kinds of different equipment to help us better understand how the rocket works as we move forward. That’s the mission: a second flight to get certified and our own technology experiments.”
ULA managers describe Vulcan as “the future of our company.” It replaces the already retired Delta 4 rocket family and the historic Atlas family, which dates back to the early days of the U.S. space program.
ULA still has 15 Atlas 5 rockets in its inventory. Eight will be used to launch the Amazon Kuiper Internet relay satellite, six will be used to launch Boeing’s Starliner crew ferry ship to the International Space Station, and one will be used to lift a Viasat communications satellite into orbit.
As these missions take place over the next few years, Vulcan will be the company’s only launcher.
“The system we have developed is positioning us for a very bright and prosperous future for many years to come,” Mark Peller, ULA’s vice president of Vulcan development, said ahead of the rocket’s first flight. “We have an order book for more than 70 missions before our first flight, so it has already proven to be a very competitive product in the market.”
Unlike the Atlas 5, which uses Russian-built RD-180 engines to power the rocket’s first stage, the Vulcan, which uses American-made power, uses two BE- 4 Uses a 1st stage engine. .
At takeoff, the twin BE-4s produce a combined 1.1 million pounds of thrust. Two strapped solid propellant boosters will generate 919,200 pounds of additional thrust, for a total thrust of just over 2 million pounds. The Vulcan can be launched with up to six straps, depending on mission requirements.
The hydrogen-fueled Centaur 5 upper stage engine will produce 23,825 pounds of thrust, allowing it to launch heavy military payloads into so-called high-energy orbits that cannot easily be reached by rockets optimized for low-Earth orbit.
Bruno did not reveal the cost of the Vulcan rocket other than to say it would cost less than $100 million, making it competitive with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.
“After this mission, the next missions will be some missions for the Space Force,” Bruno said. “It’s urgent and we can’t wait any longer for our dream chasers, as we expect them to be ready to go this year.”
