United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket is making ready for its swan music relating to launching crucial missions related to U.S. nationwide safety. The launch supplier is prepping to ship up a labeled payload as a part of the US House Pressure-51 (USSF-51) mission, marking the one hundredth such operation for ULA.
Liftoff from House Launch Complicated 41 (SLC-41) at Cape Canaveral House Pressure Station (CCSFS) is focusing on Tuesday, July 30, throughout a three-hour window that opens at 6:45 a.m. EDT (1045 UTC). Spaceflight Now can have stay protection starting almost two hours forward of liftoff.
Out of the 99 nationwide safety flights to this point, ULA used an Atlas 5 rocket for 57 of them. That partnership between the rocket and the Division of Protection goes again to first such mission, House Take a look at Program 1 (STP-1), which launched in March 2007.
These nationwide safety missions have been initially contracted below the Developed Expendable Launch Automobile (EELV) program. This system title modified to Nationwide Safety House Launch (NSSL) in March 2019 about 9 months earlier than the institution of the U.S. House Pressure.
“The following 5 missions, beginning with that one, have been Nationwide Safety House Launch missions and represented a forging of an amazing partnership with United Launch Alliance that has continued up until this present day,” mentioned Dr. Walt Lauderdale, the U.S.-51 mission director.
“We’ve put loads of nationwide functionality on orbit to help our warfighter and our intelligence communities, capabilities we will’t transcend in some areas to speak about, however issues that assist our of us on the ocean, within the air and on the bottom all throughout the globe each single day.”
ULA spent an excellent a part of the day on Saturday rolling the Atlas 5 rocket out of its Vertical Integration Facility making its remaining one-third-of-a-mile (550 meter) journey to the launch pad at SLC-41. It got here after ULA Launch Director Steve Huff led and accomplished the launch readiness evaluate on Friday.
“That is the ultimate House Pressure Atlas 5 launch and it’s probably the most crucial payloads that we’ve put updated, I’d say,” mentioned Gary Wentz, ULA’s vp of Authorities and Industrial Packages. “We are able to’t speak lots about that, however it’s undoubtedly crucial to the protection of our nation in addition to our allies.”
The us-51 mission was tasked to ULA as a part of the NSSL Part 2 Order 12 months 1 project. ULA and SpaceX have been awarded $3.4 billion and $3.3 billion Indefinite Supply Necessities (IDR) contracts in Might 2019 to launch an estimated 34 mission, break up 60/40.
Earlier this month, a contract modification was introduced to “improve the estimated whole contact greenback worth because of the improve in estimated mission portions that will likely be ordered below the Part 2 contract.”
“Per DFARS 205.303, a public announcement have to be made after the preliminary estimated face worth is reached. The federal government put an excellent religion manifest estimate within the Part 2 Request for Proposal, launched Might 2019, to permit potential bidders to adequately develop their proposals,” a spokesperson for the U.S. House Methods Command informed Spaceflight Now in a July 19 assertion. “We estimated 34 missions could be ordered throughout Part 2 and the 34 missions (break up 60/40) have been used to develop the $3.4 billion and $3.3 billion ULA and SpaceX contract values, respectively.”
“As FY24 is the ultimate order yr of Part 2 this modification was updating the contracts to the precise variety of missions ordered FY20-FY24 to 49 and thus the necessity to improve the contract values to $4.5 billion and $4.0 billion, respectively.”
The forty ninth mission, NROL-95, is anticipated to be awarded by the tip of July, based on the SSC.
Initially, USSF-51 was scheduled to launch on a Vulcan rocket, however due to growth delays, in June 2021 the U.S. House and Missile Methods Middle (modified to the SSC in 2021) accredited switching the launch car from Vulcan to Atlas.
‘The Bruiser’ period
Whereas neither ULA nor the U.S. House Pressure supplied specifics in regards to the mission, it’s calling upon what ULA calls “the very best efficiency configuration of the (Atlas) rocket with a full praise of 5 stable rocket boosters.” ULA termed this as an Atlas 5 551 configuration or as ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno nicknamed it, “The Bruiser.”
This model of an Atlas 5 rocket will likely be seen a number of extra instances earlier than the rocket is finally retired. Wentz informed Spaceflight Now on Saturday that every one of its remaining business launches will fly the 551 configuration, which embody eight missions for Amazon’s Mission Kuiper and one for Viasat.
“Each time you fly, you be taught lots and we’re flying 5 GEM (Graphite-Expoxy Motor) 63s on this mission,” Wentz mentioned. “So, we’ll be taught from that, we’ll proceed to get knowledge and going ahead, we’ll apply that to the following Atlas missions.”
Previous to the U.S.-51 launch, ULA launched 13 earlier missions utilizing the 551 configuration. ULA first flew an Atlas 5 551 rocket on Jan. 19, 2006, when it launched NASA’s New Horizons mission to Pluto. This was the seventh launch of an Atlas 5 rocket total.
“The Bruiser” model of Atlas 5 additionally launched the next missions:
- Aug. 5, 2011 – Juno
- Feb. 24, 2012 – MUOS-1
- July 19, 2013 – MUOS-2
- Jan. 20, 2014 – MUOS-3
- Sept. 2, 2015 – MUOS-4
- June 24, 2016 – MUOS-5
- April 14, 2018 – AFSPC-11
- Oct. 17, 2018 – AEHF-4
- Aug. 8, 2019 – AEHF-5
- March 26, 2020 – AEHF-6
- Dec. 7, 2021 – STP-3
- Sept. 10, 2023 – NROL-107
“The staff goes via, they mannequin, they predict the efficiency. They’ll then have a look at all of the flight traits, what the mission wants and what margins that we’ve got. Then after we come down right here, the staff goes via excruciating element, stacking the booster, mating the solids, the higher stage, integrating the payload,” Wentz mentioned. “They only frequently give attention to security of not solely the {hardware}, however our personnel all through the method to satisfy 100% mission success.”
Vulcans on the horizon
As soon as the U.S.-51 mission is within the rearview mirror for ULA, it’s going to shift its focus to the second certification flight of Vulcan, often called Cert-2. It’s first launch, Cert-1, proved profitable in January when it launched the Astrobotic Peregrine lunar lander.
ULA is aiming for the second launch to happen in September with an inert payload onboard that may embody some Vulcan expertise demonstrations.
“We’re within the remaining phases of our certification. ULA is finishing their remaining qualification exams, that are going properly, and we’re postured to be full and ready on knowledge from this subsequent certification flight after which prepared for our first nationwide safety bulk admission within the October timeframe,” mentioned Col. Jim Horne, Senior Materiel Chief of the Launch Execution Delta.
“Issues are progressing properly. We’ve had loads of good critiques, we’ve over come some main obstacles and we’re excited to get going this yr.”
In current weeks, Bruno shared a number of photos of the progress of the Vulcan car, stating in a put up on X, previously Twitter, that there are presently “23 Vulcans in manufacturing!!!”
One other #VulcanRocket departs Alabama and heads to Florida, making room in our crowded rocket manufacturing facility. 23 Vulcans in manufacturing!!! pic.twitter.com/CIfBl8yKMS
— Tory Bruno (@torybruno) July 26, 2024
That exclamation punctuated the third Vulcan booster to go away ULA’s manufacturing facility in Decatur, Alabama, to start the voyage to Florida. It should help the U.S.-87 mission, which is able to launch in direction of the tip of 2024.
The primary operational mission of Vulcan would be the U.S.-106 mission, which Horne referenced. Earlier than that occurs, Horne mentioned he and others are keen to observe the efficiency of the Cert-2 mission.
Initially, Cert-2 was going to launch Sierra House’s Dream Chaser spaceplane, however as a result of it was falling not on time in its remaining, prelaunch work, ULA and Sierra House determined to punt that mission to a different launch so as to progress via the certification course of.
“At this level, the information (from Cert-1) correlated fairly intently with our mannequin. So that is simply one other verification that we’ve got the correct evaluation instruments in place for future flights and ensure we’ve captured the surroundings for the spacecraft in addition to the rocket,” Horne mentioned.
“This will likely be a extremely good verification for us of what we noticed in Cert-1. The configuration variations have been properly inside our certification plan. Based mostly on that, it was just a few changes they needed to make for this mission. However we’re excited to get the information.”
