Despite havingn’t released anything in more than five months, the United Launch Alliance is scheduled to fly around 12 missions this year. However, Space Force is still waiting to prove the new Vulcan rocket for a national security launch.
The Vulcan flew twice in 2024, but the second mission had a rough ride into space. One of the nozzles that was scraped off one of two mounted solid rocket boosters provided by Northrop Grumman immediately after launch. Built by Blue Origin, Vulcan’s main BE-4 engine was strong enough to compensate for the flight booster damage, but this event was the main culprit for the delay in authentication.
“They have all the data. We’ve done everything you need to do. On Wednesday in a Media Roundtable discussion, ULA president and CEO Tory Bruno said: “Usually, when a vehicle is certified, it’s not a very long process in the past, so they have it.”
Bruno said the nozzle damage was due to subsequently corrected manufacturing defects.
“We’re waiting now,” he said.
Sentinel has contacted the Space Systems Command within Space Force for up-to-date information on authentication. In December, Colonel James Horne said it had an SSC launch execution system and was expected to be completed by January.
In the meantime, ULA unleashed the Vulcan rocket that was being prepared for launch at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station for the Space Force USSF-106 mission. It cleared that way, instead, allowing you to set up an Atlas V rocket for commercial customers.
There is no date for that launch.
Bruno said he expects he will return to the Balkan after this first project, Kuiper Flight, and will eventually begin his national security mission.
“I’m hoping to fly dozens of times now because of the balance this year,” he said. “If a satellite appears, you can fly more. Obviously, if there is no satellite, you will fly less. But we’re solving the anomalies and waiting for certification, so we’re continuing to build rockets.”
He says he’s producing almost a dozen Atlas pairs, half a dozen Vulcan rocket stages.
“I can’t take them all to the cape because there’s no room for them all there, but there’s more to be carried there or already there that can fit in the cape,” he said.
He also already has numerous solid rocket boosters in Florida with £5 million propellant.
“So we’re all going to be staged and ready, and when the spaceships show up, we’ll be able to fly them,” he said.
By the end of 2025, he hopes that ULA will enter the tempo of around two launches a month to host at least 20 launches in 2026, which has been etched in the backlog of 70 missions within national security and commercial contracts.
ULA is a shared venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. There were five releases in 2024, including the final mission of Delta IV Heavy, and in 2023, only three releases were included.
There are 15 Atlas V Rockets remaining at ULA, eight of whom will be reserved for Project Kuiper, and six of whom will line up for ViaSat communications satellites for the future launch of Boeing’s Starliner.
The Vulcan was designed as an alternative to the Atlas V and Delta IV Rockets.
ULA has 38 missions alongside Project Kuiper in the Vulcan, but the most advantageous launches come from the Department of Defense’s 24 missions. The Department of Defense was awarded as part of the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 2 program.
The Vulcan was a few years behind when its debut was released in January 2024, but it worked very well. Follow-up launches did not occur until October 2024. It also flew without paid customers with the main goal of obtaining a second flight mandated by the Space Force under the belt to be certified for national security missions.
The $8.5 billion in the NSSL Phase 2 contract was ruled out by both ULA and SpaceX for five years in 2020. All of the missions on the Vulcan were supposed to be.
The first two missions awarded to the ULA were originally to fly by the end of 2022. ULA got its first one from last summer, but only after switching to the Atlas V.
The other awarded in 2020 will not be able to fly until the Vulcan is certified.
Meanwhile, ULA lost one of the other phase two task orders.
An Air Force report leaked to Bloomberg News this week said ULA “inadequately carried out” in completing its obligations under the DOD contract. The report also delves into the possibility of stealing ULA’s mission and passing it over to “alternative providers.”
For now, the alternative provider is SpaceX.
Bruno took the exception to the report. He said it was inaccurate when it was written, and was even more inaccurate now in light of the pace of rocket and engine manufacturing since last year and the recent completion of investigation into false booster nozzles at the recent Vulcan launch.
“I don’t usually talk about reports that were leaked inappropriately, but I’m going to make an exception this time,” he said. “It’s a bit suspicious that this was leaked inappropriately at this moment when I waited for certification.”
ULA’s potential payments for the remaining 25 missions under contract are nearly $4.5 billion, with SpaceX having 23 task orders over $4 billion.
“In our business, if you don’t fly, you won’t get paid,” he said. “So we haven’t gotten paid for them this year, so we haven’t gotten paid for them.”
Original issue: March 13, 2025 8:55am EDT
