After what has demonstrably been its “lightest” yr on report, when it comes to flights at the very least, United Launch Alliance (ULA) is gearing up for its first Atlas V mission of 2023 tomorrow morning, laden with a extremely secretive payload on behalf of the Nationwide Reconnaissance Workplace. The “Mighty Atlas”—outfitted in its strongest guise, the “551”, nicknamed “The Bruiser” by ULA CEO Tory Bruno—will fly from storied House Launch Complicated (SLC)-41 at Cape Canaveral House Drive Station, Fla., no sooner than 8:34 a.m. EDT Tuesday.
The 551, so named on account of its 17.7-foot-diameter (5.4-meter) payload fairing, its 5 strap-on Graphite Epoxy Motor (GEM)-63 solid-fueled boosters and its single-engine Centaur higher stage, has flown 12 occasions, most lately in December 2021 when it supported ULA’s longest mission up to now. On that flight, it inserted the U.S. House Drive-led House Check Program (STP)-3 payload immediately into geostationary orbit throughout a prolonged seven-hour uphill cruise which required no fewer than three Centaur “burns”, an intensive part of “coasting” and the first-time use of ULA’s In-Flight Energy System (IFPS) to facilitate a “optimistic energy finances” on the level of deployment.
Able to lifting payloads as much as 41,000 kilos (18,800 kilograms) into low-Earth orbit and as a lot as 19,600 kilos (8,900 kilograms) to geostationary altitude, the 551 first noticed service in January 2006 to launch NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto. Extra lately, it additionally delivered the Juno orbiter to Jupiter in August 2011, in addition to 5 Cellular Consumer Goal System (MUOS) narrow-band army communications satellites between February 2012 and June 2016, the previous Air Drive House Command’s AFSPC-11 mixed-manifest mission in April 2018 and the ultimate three members of the Superior Extraordinarily Excessive Frequency (AEHF) geostationary community.
The 551’s heavy-lifting and orbital-insertion-accuracy credentials will undoubtedly lend themselves to its subsequent mission, which can ship long-delayed NROL-107 payload to Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO). Encumbered with the curious nomenclature of “Silent Barker”, this explicit payload has been ready within the wings for a number of years, ever since contracts to launch it had been awarded to ULA back in February 2019 as a part of a three-mission Atlas V take care of the Air Drive, value an estimated $441.76 million.
Beneath the phrases of that contract, which fashioned a part of the Air Drive’s Part 1A procurement technique, two different missions—the fifth and sixth geostationary members of the House-Based mostly Infrared System (SBIRS GEO-5 and GEO-6)—later made it safely to orbit in Could 2021 and August of final yr, respectively. However Silent Barker, initially baselined to fly in Fiscal 12 months 2022 however postponed considerably into this yr’s third quarter, has confirmed stubbornly extra irksome to get off the bottom.
The precise nature of no matter has saved Silent Barker ground-bound for therefore lengthy stays unclear. Nonetheless, simply final fall a payload-related situation was found, which required the spacecraft to be returned to its producer for consideration.
Silent Barker itself is a robust House Area Consciousness mission in geosynchronous orbit, executed collectively by the Nationwide Reconnaissance Workplace and the House Drive’s House Methods Command (SSC). “Silent Barker is designed to detect and preserve custody of house objects,” defined ULA. “Silent Barker will present the potential to look, detect and monitor objects from space-based sensors for well timed custody and occasion detection.
“Surveillance from house augments and overcomes current ground-sensor limitations with well timed, 24-hour, above-the-weather assortment of satellite tv for pc metric knowledge, solely potential with a space-based sensor,” it continued, “after which communicates its findings to satellite tv for pc operators, analysts and different mission customers.”
The mission’s patch symbology—a leaping fox—alludes to Silent Barker’s total goal. “The leaping fox,” tweeted the NRO, earlier in August, “portrays the agility and intelligent intelligence that provides us an edge over adversaries.”
Stacking of Atlas V {hardware} for this necessary mission began on 13 July, when the 107-foot-long (33-meter) Frequent Core Booster (CCB) was elevated to a vertical configuration atop the Cellular Launch Platform (MLP) contained in the Vertical Integration Facility (VIF), adjoining to SLC-41. Per week later, the 5 Northrop Grumman-built GEM-63 boosters—every of which can generate 371,500 kilos (168,500 kilograms) of thrust at liftoff—had been mounted across the CCB’s base, to finish the preliminary structural build-up of the lowermost portion of the Mighty Atlas.
All informed, and when mixed with the CCB’s Russian-built RD-180 engine, they may energy the Silent Barker mission off SLC-41 with a complete impulse in extra of two.3 million kilos (1.4 million kilograms). The 41.5-foot-long (12.6-meter) Centaur higher stage was added to the stack on 24 July and earlier this month teams conducted a Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR), rolling the stack—minus its payload—out to SLC-41 and loading it with over 66,000 gallons (300,000 liters) of liquid oxygen and hydrogen propellants.
Already, the Atlas V had been earlier loaded with 25,000 gallons (94,000 liters) of “storable” kerosene and the WDR additionally furnished ULA and alternative to wring out the Atlas V’s phases, avionics and floor programs. The check proceeded till a scheduled cutoff level, simply forward of RD-180 ignition earlier than the rocket returned to the VIF.
Last week, the 17.7-foot-diameter (5.4-meter) Brief Payload Fairing (SPF)—a bullet-like construction which encapsulates Silent Barker and protects it through the excessive dynamism of launch and ascent—was transported to the VIF and hoisted atop the stack, elevating the peak of the Atlas V to 196 toes (59.7 meters). A passable Launch Readiness Overview (LRR) on Thursday, led by Launch Director Paul Aragon, produced a definitive “Go” to proceed with Silent Barker’s launch at 8:34 a.m. EDT on Tuesday, 29 August.
Lastly, final Friday the Mighty Atlas lumbered out of the VIF and was rolled the quarter-mile (400-meter) distance to the SLC-41 pad floor, a journey which took about an hour to finish.
Climate for Tuesday’s opening launch try is presently about 65-percent favorable, deteriorating to only 40 % within the occasion of a 24-hour slip to Wednesday. “The climate will turn out to be fairly lively subsequent week, as an space of low strain strikes into the Gulf of Mexico,” the forty fifth reported, with an elevated storm probability.
“The Nationwide Hurricane Heart has given the system a 70-percent of improvement within the subsequent seven days,” it ominously concluded. “Whereas there may be nonetheless disagreement among the many world fashions relating to the place, timing and depth of this potential storm, the final consensus is that the storm will strategy Florida’s west coast.
“By Tuesday morning, many of the fashions have the system to our southwest, someplace within the Japanese Gulf,” the forty fifth cautioned. “The primary considerations shall be any showers that develop from outer bands and anvil clouds blowing off from the principle space of convection within the Gulf.”
Though ULA identifies Silent Barker as “our second consecutive launch of the summer season”—following onerous on the heels of a Delta IV Heavy with the extremely categorised NROL-68 payload in June—the actual fact stays that 2023 has thus far formed as much as be considered one of its “lightest” years on report, when it comes to missions at the very least. Solely 2006, the yr the ULA was born, was lighter, with a single launch that December.
And with the long-awaited Crew Flight Check (CFT) of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner to the Worldwide House Station (ISS), carrying NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Suni Williams, having been delayed till March 2024 on the very soonest, its Atlas V launch has formally been deleted from ULA’s 2023 manifest. The in-development Vulcan-Centaur heavylifter, which wrapped up a clean Flight Readiness Firing (FRF) in June, can also be not anticipated to fly its maiden “Cert-1” mission till the very finish of the yr on the earliest.
That leaves solely an Atlas V in late September for a check flight in help of ULA’s function in launching Amazon’s Undertaking Kuiper web satellite tv for pc communications community and the U.S.-51 payload for the House Drive, probably in December. If each of these missions fly as timelined, 2023 will conclude on 4 launches, its lightest yr since 2008 which noticed only a pair of Atlas Vs take flight.
