Practically a decade of planning, designing, meeting and testing for United Launch Alliance (ULA) is about to culminate within the first launch of its Vulcan rocket. The maiden flight of the launch automobile is about for Monday, Jan. 8, at 2:18 am EST (0718 UTC) from House Launch Complicated 41 at Cape Canaveral House Pressure Station.
The absolutely assembled rocket emerged from the Vertical Integration Facility round 10:40 a.m. EST on Friday to journey the roughly 500-meter journey to the launch pad. After the 61.6-meter-tall (202 ft) rocket accomplished its trek, ULA groups spent the remainder of the day performing leak checks on the umbilicals that may gasoline the rocket and trying out the steering and flight termination methods.
That’s how we roll. #ToryTimelapse #VulcanRocket pic.twitter.com/3bz9LgMZ0r
— Tory Bruno (@torybruno) January 5, 2024
Onboard, the first payload, Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander, is awaiting its journey to the Moon. It was hoisted atop the rocket contained in the 15.5-meter-long (51 ft) payload fairing, manufactured by Past Gravity, on Dec. 20. Peregrine will probably be launched right into a trans-lunar injection orbit to start its journey to the Moon earlier than the Centaur 5 higher stage continues on with Celestis Memorial Spaceflight’s “Enterprise Flight” to a heliocentric orbit across the Solar.
Mark Peller, ULA vp of Vulcan Growth, described the pending launch as a defining second for a lot of within the ULA firm.
“It’s terribly thrilling. It’s certainly one of these once-in-your-career alternatives for most individuals and many individuals undergo their entire profession with out ever getting this chance,” Peller mentioned. “It’s been lots of exhausting work, nevertheless it’s tremendously gratifying and it’s actually helped us at ULA clearly develop our capabilities internally to deliver new merchandise to market.”
This model of the Vulcan rocket, a VC2S variant, is 61.6 meters (202 ft) tall and is initially powered by a mix of two Northrop Grumman GEM 63XL strong rocket boosters and two, methane/oxygen-fueled BE-4 engines from Blue Origin. The higher stage is powered by a pair of Aerojet Rockedyne-provided RL10C-1-1A engines that burn a mix of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.
Beginning in 2025, the Centaur 5 will use the upgraded RL10C-X engines which might be presently being developed and examined by Aerojet Rocketdyne about 150 miles south of the Cape close to West Palm Seashore, Florida.
The subsequent few days will probably be a flurry of exercise. On Sunday, the countdown to launch will begin by powering on the Vulcan rocket at 3 p.m. EST (2000 UTC), 11 hours previous to liftoff. The launch complicated will probably be cleared at L-6 hours (8 p.m. EST, 0100 UTC) and an hour later, they are going to begin chilling the feed traces forward of the beginning of tanking.
Vulcan is loaded with 454,000 kg (1 million lbs) of propellant, which is a mix of methane, liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. It weighs 663,367 kg (1,462,474 lbs.) as soon as it’s absolutely fueled.
Gary Wentz, ULA vp of Authorities and Industrial Applications, mentioned tanking will probably be accomplished at L-2 hours (12:00 a.m. EST, 0500 UTC). Throughout a media teleconference in regards to the mission on Friday, Wentz was requested a couple of extra detailed timeline, however declined to enter extra specifics.
This would be the first time a significant U.S. rocket has been launched with out the launch firm offering a countdown timeline to the information media. ULA was additionally limiting information media entry to countdown audio and video of the rocket to the ultimate hour of the countdown after the propellant loading course of will probably be full.
“This can be a flight take a look at. That is our first take a look at. The preliminary timeline that we’ve got had some margin in it and over time, these timelines will change and I think about extra element, as we undergo the method, will come out,” Wentz mentioned. “However proper now, we’ll say there’s some margin constructed into the timelines and so, we’re going to work by that.”
Wentz famous that there’s a deliberate 60-minute maintain at T-7 minutes, throughout which the launch workforce will assess their technical readiness.
Whereas the launch is presently deliberate for two:18 a.m. EST (0718 UTC) on Jan. 8, there are a number of backup alternatives out there to ULA:
- Jan. 8 – 2:18 a.m. EST / 0718 UTC (45 min. window)
- Jan. 9 – 12:15 a.m. EST / 0515 UTC (9 min. window)
- Jan. 10 – 12:12 a.m. EST / 0512 UTC (1 min. window)
- Jan. 11 – 12:14 a.m. EST / 0514 UTC (3 min. Window)
Wentz mentioned the various occasions are pushed by a mix of “orbital mechanics and us with the ability to rendezvous for the lunar injection.”
“As we undergo the move, the variety of back-to-back makes an attempt will rely upon how far we go into the rely, how a lot consumables/commodities we really expend within the scrub course of, assuming it’s a climate delay or one thing like that,” Wentz mentioned.
He added that if none of these dates work out, the following launch alternative opens on Jan. 23.
Prepared for flight
ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno formally introduced Vulcan to the world on April 13, 2015, about seven months after its introduced partnership with Blue Origin to amass BE-4 engines to energy the booster stage of this new rocket. The pivot away from the Russian RD-180 engines used on the Atlas 5 rocket got here after stress from the U.S. Congress following Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014.
The rocket was deliberate to make its debut in 2019, however would go on to come across years of delays in growth in addition to delays within the supply of the BE-4 engines themselves. Throughout a press briefing on Friday, Astrobotic CEO John Thornton mentioned the legacy of ULA, which boasts a one hundred pc mission success fee since its inception in 2006, was an enormous cause they selected Vulcan as their journey to house.
“Vulcan has a brand new title, nevertheless it actually is an upgraded Atlas 5, so that offers us nice consolation in that as effectively,” Thornton mentioned. “They’ve been a incredible accomplice to us through the years in growth of this functionality in parallel with growth of their rocket.”
Thornton added that as a result of they’re additionally working on a constrained funds, they needed to discover inventive methods to pay for his or her flight to the Moon. He mentioned the danger of being on the debut flight of Vulcan helped an incredible take care of that.
“We selected United Launch Alliance’s first flight of Vulcan as a result of we consider a lot within the firm and we’re very, very assured that this mission will probably be profitable,” Thornton mentioned. “And, in fact, that got here with some reduction on the worth and that makes this mission attainable.”
Thornton didn’t go into element on how a lot Astrobotic paid for the ULA flight, however NASA is paying Astrobotic $108 million to ferry its 5 payloads to the lunar floor as a part of its Industrial Lunar Payload Companies (CLPS) program. That was a rise from the unique $79.5 million for 14 NASA payloads. The extra value stemmed from provide chain impacts of COVID-19 and a shifting of the touchdown location in 2022, in response to NASA’s Joel Kearns, and the offloaded payloads will fly on different CLPS missions.
Wentz added that Vulcan is predominantly legacy {hardware} with a collection of upgrades or variants to them, which ULA believes helps instil additional confidence.
“The one {hardware} that hasn’t flown previous to this flight is the BE-4 engine. All the opposite, or variants there to, have flown on both Atlas or Delta flights on missions for different prospects,” Wentz mentioned. “So, that gave us confidence to have the ability to supply this to help NASA and Astrobotic’s missions.”
Getting ready for what comes subsequent
This primary launch for ULA’s Vulcan rocket is an important proving floor for the corporate because it appears in direction of the critically necessary missions which might be a part of the U.S. House Pressure’s Nationwide Safety House Launch (NSSL) program. Vulcan wants to finish two certification flights earlier than it could actually launch its first NSSL mission.
After the Peregrine flight checks the field for Cert-1, ULA goals to launch Sierra House’s Dream Chaser spaceplane to the Worldwide House Station on the Cert-2 mission. Peller mentioned after Cert-1 launches, they put aside 60 days for an information overview and to make sure they’re prepared to maneuver on.
They hope to launch the Cert-2 mission round April, a month presently set to characteristic one other ULA mission to the ISS: the launch of the Crew Flight Take a look at mission for Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. It’s unclear if each missions would launch inside the similar month.
Wentz mentioned ULA has six Vulcan flights presently on the 2024 manifest with the 4 non-certification flights all poised to be NSSL missions. Along with that, the corporate can be planning to fly 9 Atlas 5 rockets and the ultimate Delta 4 Heavy rocket.
“Subsequent yr, the speed will increase to a complete of on the order of 28 launches for the yr,” Wentz mentioned. “We’re additionally setting up a secondary functionality the place we are able to do vertical integration of a second automobile in parallel. And as soon as that functionality is introduced on board, our flight fee will improve.”
