Tag: ULA

ULA’s Delta 4 Heavy Launches NRO Satellite

Space News reports that United Launch Alliance “launched a classified National Reconnaissance Office spy satellite on a Delta 4 Heavy rocket June 22 at 5:18 a.m. Eastern from Space Launch Complex-37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.” It was ULA’s second attempt “of this launch that had been previously scheduled for June 21 but was delayed, the company said, ‘due to an issue with a ground systems pneumatic valve.’” About four minutes into flight, “the outer boosters of the three-core Delta 4 Heavy separated.” The second stage “separated about two minutes later.” This mission was “ULA’s first launch of 2023.” The company in May 2019 “received a U.S. Air Force contract to launch NROL-68.” The Delta 4 Heavy configuration “first launched in December 2004.” Each of the Delta 4 Heavy’s common booster cores “is powered by Aerojet [Rocketdyne’s] RS-68A main engines.” The Delta cryogenic second stage “is powered by an RL10C-2-1 engine.”
Full Story (Space News)

Vulcan Rolled Out to Launchpad for Final Series of Tests Ahead of its Debut Launch

Aviation Week (5/11) reports that a “United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan-Centaur rocket was rolled out to its launchpad on May 11 for a final series of tests ahead of its debut launch, targeted for this summer.” Space News reports ULA said on Thursday that the “Vulcan is in position atop SLC-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to undergo a full launch day rehearsal tomorrow and flight readiness firing test of its main engines planned for next week.” ULA CEO Tory Bruno tweeted on Wednesday that the “Vulcan was returning to tanking tests although the investigation of a Centaur upper-stage testing anomaly that occurred on March 29 has not yet been completed.” Bruno said that “ULA plans to livestream the flight-readiness test firing of the BE-4 main engines. The test fire is expected to last about six seconds, he said. ‘A short burn, but a very long time to be on the pad.’”
Full Story (Aviation Week); More Info (Space News)

ULA Expects Vulcan Launch in the Summer, at Earliest

Gizmodo reports United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno tweeted that company’s Vulcan rocket’s earliest estimated launch date would be “June/July.” ULA previously planned a May 4 inaugural flight, but in late March a spark triggered a fireball during testing of a Vulcan upper stage at the test stand at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. The Vulcan’s first launch “is set to deliver Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander, which, on behalf of NASA, will attempt to deliver 11 payloads to the surface of the Moon.”
Full Story (Gizmodo)

ULA Announces May Launch for First Vulcan Centaur Rocket

Space News reports that the “first launch of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket is now scheduled for no earlier than May 4, a date the company says is based on remaining tests of the rocket and its main engines as well as launch windows for its primary payload.” In a call with reporters Thursday, ULA CEO Tory Bruno “announced the date for the long-awaited inaugural flight of the rocket as the company gears up for a series of tests of the rocket at Space Launch Complex 41. The launch will carry Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander, two demonstration satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband constellation and a payload for space memorial company Celestis.” Bruno said, “We are now targeting the fourth of May so we plan our manifest around that and be ready to fly that payload when it comes in.” According to Space News, “ULA will have a window of about four days to conduct the launch.”
Full Story (Space News)

Florida’s Space Coast Adds Another Rocket with ULA’s Vulcan Centaur’s Arrival

The Orlando Sentinel reports that the Space Coast “has another new rocket in town as the United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur arrived by ship over the weekend ahead of its first-ever launch this year.” The replacement for ULA’s Atlas V and Delta IV rockets “still has testing to endure at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, as well as the integration of its payloads, but the hardware separated into three massive parts was offloaded from the company’s RocketShip transport on Sunday.” It arrived at Port Canaveral “the day before after traveling more than 2,000 miles by river and ocean rom ULA’s factory in Decatur, Alabama.” Its arrival “marks the fourth new orbital-class rocket to call the Space Coast home in just over a year joining NASA’s Space Launch System that took off from Kennedy Space Center for the first time last November on the Artemis I mission, small rocket provider Astra Space’s Rocket 3.3, which had two launches from Cape Canaveral, and Relativity Space’s Terran-1, a 3D-printed rocket awaiting its first-ever launch early this year from Canaveral as well.”
Full Story (Orlando Sentinel – Subscription publication)

What to Expect in the Space Industry in 2023

The New York Times reports that in 2022, NASA “wowed us with cosmic scenes captured by the James Webb Space Telescope.” The DART mission “slammed an asteroid into a new orbit. Artemis I set humanity on a course back to the moon.” China finished “building a new space station in orbit, SpaceX launched 61 rockets in 12 months, and the invasion of Ukraine imperiled Russia’s status as a space power.” It’s a lot “to measure up to, but 2023 is bound to have some excitement on the launchpad, the lunar surface and in the sky.” SpaceX is building Starship for Artemis III and “numerous other rockets may take flight for the first time in 2023.” The most important, Vulcan Centaur by United Launch Alliance, “will eventually replace that company’s Atlas V, a vehicle that has been central to American spaceflight for two decades.” A number of “American private companies are expected to test new rockets in 2023, including Relativity and ABL.” They could “be joined by foreign rocket makers, including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries which could test Japan’s H3 rocket in February, and Arianespace, which is working toward a test flight of Europe’s Ariane 6 rocket.” We’re guaranteed “at least one lunar landing attempt in 2023.” A Japanese company, ispace, “launched its M1 mission on a SpaceX rocket in December.” It’s taking a “slow, fuel-efficient route to the moon and is set to arrive in April, when it will try to deploy a rover built by the United Arab Emirates, a robot built by Japan’s space agency, JAXA, as well as other payloads.”
Full Story (New York Times)

ULA’s Atlas V Launches from Cape Canaveral

Spaceflight Now reports that a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas 5 rocket successfully launched Tuesday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 5:36 p.m. ET, “on a delivery mission for the commercial telecom satellite operator SES.”   The mission is noteworthy as it marked “the first commercial Atlas 5 launch into geosynchronous orbit.” More than six hours after liftoff, the rocket’s Centaur upper stage deployed the SES 20 and 21 satellites, which are set “to begin 15-year missions beaming C-band television and raido programming across the United States.”
Full Story (Spaceflight Now)

 

  Video

ULA’s live broadcast of its Atlas V SES-20/21 mission launch.
(ULA; YouTube)

Space Industry Warned of Recession Impact

Space News reports that United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno on Monday warned of the negative impact on the space industry by a possible recession. Quilty Analytics reported, “We expect the slowdown in public capital markets activity to continue, at least in the near-term, until market volatility remains subdued for a sufficient period of time.” Bruno noted the current environment is not favorable for high-risk investments, including those in the space sector. Bruno added, “There may be some companies that would have been great to have saved. But the ones that do get invested in are going to get a lot more attention and have a better chance of surviving.”
Full Story (Space News)

ULA’s Atlas 5 Launches Two Space Force Satellites to Test Early Warning Technology

CBS News reported that “after waiting out cloudy weather, the U.S. Space Force launched two satellites atop an Atlas 5 rocket Friday to test ballistic and hypersonic missile early warning and tracking technology and to deploy a maneuverable spacecraft carrying an unknown number of classified payloads.” United Launch Alliance’s 196-foot-tall rocket lifted off at 7:15 p.m. EDT from pad 41 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, “knifing through low clouds and quickly disappearing from view as it streaked away to the east over the Atlantic Ocean. Eleven minutes later, the Aerojet Rocketdyne engine powering the rocket’s second stage completed the first of three planned firings designed to put the two satellites in a circular orbit 22,300 miles above the equator.” According to CBS News, the “trip was expected to take about six hours, ending early Saturday with the satellites’ deployment from the Centaur second stage.”
Full Story (CBS News)
 
 
 

 

 Video

Atlas 5 rocket launch with U.S. Space Force experimental satellites, July 1, 2022
(Spaceflight Now via YouTube)