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Space The Military

Space Force Certifies Vulcan For National Security Launches (spacenews.com) 49

Posted by BeauHD from the critical-milestones dept.
The U.S. Space Force has certified United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur rocket for national security missions after successful test flights and resolution of a booster nozzle issue. This certification allows ULA to join SpaceX in conducting launches under the National Security Space Launch program, with Vulcan missions expected to begin this summer. SpaceNews reports: "Thank you to all our customer partners who have worked hand-in-hand with us throughout this comprehensive certification process. We are grateful for the collaboration and excited to reach this critical milestone in Vulcan development," said Tory Bruno, president and chief executive of United Launch Alliance in a ULA statement about the vehicle's certification.

Bruno said at the roundtable that the next launch by ULA will be of its Atlas 5, carrying a set of Project Kuiper broadband satellites for Amazon. That launch is expected as soon as next month. He said then that would be followed by the first two Vulcan national security launches, missions designated USSF-106 and USSF-87. ULA did not give a schedule for those upcoming Vulcan launches but Space Systems Command, in a summary accompanying its press release, said the first NSSL mission on Vulcan is planned for the summer. Bruno said at the roundtable that the payloads for those missions have "complex processing" requirements beyond a typical mission, and did not state how long it would take them to be ready for a launch.

Bruno said ULA is projecting a dozen launches this year, split roughly evenly between Atlas and Vulcan and between national security and commercial missions. ULA has been stockpiling components, such as BE-4 engines and solid rocket boosters, needed for those missions. "We're all staged up and ready, and as spacecraft show up, we'll be able to fly them," he said. He noted the company wants to get to a "baseline tempo" of two launches a month by the end of this year and perform 20 launches next year.

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Space Force Certifies Vulcan For National Security Launches

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  • After only 2 succesfull launches ?! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Not even to talk about the fact that these are non-reusable rockets so with every launch, at least 736 baby seals die. =/

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      Of course over 90% of the launch weight of a reusable rocket is fuel, so reusing the rocket part doesn't save much in terms of environmental costs.

      • Of course over 90% of the launch weight of a reusable rocket is fuel, so reusing the rocket part doesn't save much in terms of environmental costs.

        Empirically? No. The overhead of assembly and manufacturing a rocket is THE dominant environmental cost. It takes VERY significant manpower, materials, and energy to build one.

        For the same reasons, Falcon reuse yields an 80% cost savings, and Starship, once it’s fully operational, will yield something like a 90% or even 95% savings by being even more efficient.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hey! ( 33014 )

          You are confusing environmental with economic costs.

          • You are confusing environmental with economic costs.

            No. I am not. The environmental cost of building a rocket, or anything, is proportional to the labor and manufacturing cost of building it along with the manufacturing environmental costs themselves. Mining, smelting, grinding, assembly, etc, all have significant environmental costs - not to mention the environmental cost of the labor itself (the workers emit CO2 too!). You are simply focusing on CO2 emissions from a single launch’s fuel supply while ignoring the huge environmental cost of building th

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by hey! ( 33014 )

              You are confusing manufacturing *having* environmental costs with it being *all* the environmental costs.

              • You are (a) putting words in my mouth - I obviously did not write “all”, and (b) attempting to move the goalposts by doing so. Silly.

  • That would indeed seem... (Score:4, Funny)

    by greytree ( 7124971 ) on Thursday March 27, 2025 @06:39AM (#65262437)
    logical.
  • Serioulsy....

    That's a headline a year after the Vulcans visited earth after Cochrane did his little stunt...
  • for the orbit and package that formerly can only be serviced by retired Delta IV Heavy. Some of those profile cannot be serviced by Falcon Heavy yet.

    • for the orbit and package that formerly can only be serviced by retired Delta IV Heavy. Some of those profile cannot be serviced by Falcon Heavy yet.

      What limitations are left? Took them a while, but SpaceX finally has gotten their extending fairing into production to handle the larger physical sizes. They did their first vertical payload integration a couple years back. There were a couple of the DoD reference orbits that Heavy could not make in its first two flights, but those were sorted on flight 3.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by BigFire ( 13822 )
        The Keyhole size satellites operated by NRO require vertical integration and have a larger faring requirement. Those are formerly fulfilled by Delta IV Heavy. SpaceX is working on vertical integration at Vandenberg. The larger faring were spotted at Cape a couple of months back.

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