United Launch Alliance fired off a next-generation Vulcan rocket on Friday in the second of two "certification" test flights required before the new launch vehicle can be used to carry high-priority national security payloads for the US Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office.
One of the two strap-on solid propellant boosters supplied by Northrop Grumman appeared to suffer some anomaly during its climb out of the lower atmosphere, but the Vulcan was able to continue to orbit. What impact the issue could have on the Vulcan's certification is not yet known, but ULA CEO Tory Bruno said it will be investigated.
"The trajectory has been nominal throughout," he said during the company's launch webcast. "We did have an observation about SRB No. 1, though, so we'll look at that after the mission is complete."
The Vulcan's two Blue Origin-built BE-4 engines and twin solid rocket boosters, or SRBs, thundered into life at 7:25 a.m. EDT, shattering the morning silence with the crackling roar of 2 million pounds of thrust.
The 200-foot-tall, 1.5 million-pound rocket, decked out in a swirling red-and-white paint scheme, climbed skyward from Launch Complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and accelerated rapidly out of the dense lower atmosphere on an easterly trajectory.
The booster's apparent anomaly was seen in long-range camera footage as a shower of sparks and what appeared to be debris fell away from the right SRB. The exhaust plume from that booster changed dramatically, but the rocket was able to continue its ascent into space.
Aside from the anomaly, the strap-on boosters burned out and were jettisoned about two minutes after takeoff. The methane-burning BE-4s, each generating 550,000 pounds of thrust, continued to propel the rocket out of the lower atmosphere for about three more minutes before switching off.
The non-reusable stage then failed and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean and the flight continued under the power of the Centaur 5 upper stage's two Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10C engines.
The upper stage fired its engines a second time after reaching orbit, demonstrating its ability to restart in space, a key requirement for military payloads that require complex "high energy" trajectories to achieve their operational achieve jobs.
The Vulcans first launch on January 8 went smoothly and successfully deployed a commercially built lunar lander. For its second flight, ULA initially planned to launch Sierra Space's winged freighter - Dream Chaser - on its maiden flight, but the spacecraft could not be delivered on time.
Instead, ULA placed a dummy payload on top of the Vulcan, a so-called "mass simulator," added a few technology demonstration experiments to enable long flights, and installed additional instrumentation to capture as much data as possible during the 54-minute demonstration. .
The "cert 2" mission "literally has one main goal, which is to fly a second time and achieve success again," Bruno said before the launch. Assuming a flight data review confirms good performance, he added, "then you are ready to fly national security payloads."
How the solid fuel booster issue could factor into that data review and the rocket's eventual certification is not yet known.
But two such missions are planned for later this year, which Bruno described as "urgent." Although he did not mention any possible Space Force or NRO payloads, national security missions typically launch satellites capable of optical and radar imaging, electronic eavesdropping, encrypted communications relays and other top-secret payloads.
Because the Vulcan didn't have an active payload for its second flight, ULA added "more instrumentation that we can use to just characterize a vehicle," Bruno said.
"We're putting in all kinds of other instruments to help us better understand how the rocket works as we move forward. So that's the mission, a second flight to get certified, and then some technology experiments of our own."
ULA executives describe the Vulcan as "the future of our company." It replaces the Delta 4 rocket family, which has already been retired, and the venerable Atlas line that dates back to the early days of the U.S. space program.
ULA still has 15 Atlas 5 missiles in its inventory. Eight of them will be used to launch Amazon Kuiper Internet relay satellites, six are reserved to launch Boeing's Starliner crew ferry to the International Space Station and one is dedicated to putting a Viasat communications satellite into orbit.
Once these missions are completed in the coming years, the Vulcan will be the company's sole launch vehicle.
"The system we've developed really positions us for a very bright, prosperous future for many, many years to come," said Mark Peller, ULA's vice president of Vulcan development, before the rocket's maiden flight. "It has already proven to be an extremely competitive product in the market, with an order book of more than 70 missions before the first flight."
Unlike the Atlas 5, which uses Russian-built RD-180 engines to power the rocket's first stage, the all-American-powered Vulcan relies on two BE-4 first stage engines, built by Blue Origin, the space company of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. .
At takeoff, the twin BE-4s generate a combined thrust of 1.1 million pounds. The two tethered solid-propellant boosters generate an additional 919,200 pounds of thrust, for a total thrust of just over 2 million pounds. The Vulcan can be launched with up to six strap-ons, depending on mission requirements.
The hydrogen-powered Centaur 5 engines in the upper stage generate 23,825 pounds of thrust, allowing heavy military payloads to be launched to so-called high-energy orbits that cannot easily be reached by rockets optimized for low Earth orbit.
Bruno wouldn't reveal the cost of a Vulcan rocket, other than to say it costs less than $100 million, making it competitive with SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.
"After this mission, there will be a few more missions for the Space Force," Bruno said. "We expect these to be ready this year, hence the urgency and the fact that we can no longer wait for the Dream Chaser."
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