First Vulcan rocket arrives at Vandenberg for launch later this year
ULA has now delivered parts of a Vulcan rocket to Vandenberg Space Force Base in California as it prepares for that rocket’s first launch from that spaceport later this year.
ULA’s RocketShip recently docked at the harbor on the South Base with the Vulcan rocket components stowed inside the huge cargo vessel. … Crews spent several days offloading the hardware while mindful of tides that could have delayed the delivery.
…On the first day, workers removed the Vulcan’s Centaur upper stage from the RocketShip, followed by the booster the next day. “We tried to take off the payload adapter and the interstage adapter and, unfortunately, the swells were pretty bad,” Fortson said. After pausing the unloading chores for two days, the swells cooperated so the team didn’t have to wait for the next opportunity for suitable tides a couple of weeks away.
ULA hopes to get the launch off by June 2026, but that schedule will depend on whether the launchpad conversion from the Atlas-5 rocket can be completed. It also depends on whether the payload is ready on time. It appears this launch will be one of ULA’s seven national security launches for the Pentagon, though this is not confirmed.
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ULA has now delivered parts of a Vulcan rocket to Vandenberg Space Force Base in California as it prepares for that rocket’s first launch from that spaceport later this year.
ULA’s RocketShip recently docked at the harbor on the South Base with the Vulcan rocket components stowed inside the huge cargo vessel. … Crews spent several days offloading the hardware while mindful of tides that could have delayed the delivery.
…On the first day, workers removed the Vulcan’s Centaur upper stage from the RocketShip, followed by the booster the next day. “We tried to take off the payload adapter and the interstage adapter and, unfortunately, the swells were pretty bad,” Fortson said. After pausing the unloading chores for two days, the swells cooperated so the team didn’t have to wait for the next opportunity for suitable tides a couple of weeks away.
ULA hopes to get the launch off by June 2026, but that schedule will depend on whether the launchpad conversion from the Atlas-5 rocket can be completed. It also depends on whether the payload is ready on time. It appears this launch will be one of ULA’s seven national security launches for the Pentagon, though this is not confirmed.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
I think you mean to say that this will be one of ULA’s seven national security launches at Vandenberg SFB, right?
(Vulcan is contracted for a total of 27 national security launches from what I can tally, for the Space Force, NRO and SDA — 7 at Vandenberg, 20 at the Cape. Note that delays in Vulcan’s operational status resulted in, among other things, a swap of GPS III launches, SV09 and SV13 being traded between ULA and SpaceX. Either way, a pretty sizable backlog for ULA to work through… in fairness, the first of these launches is coming this week, USSF-87 on Thursday from the Cape at SLC-41.)
“After pausing the unloading chores for two days, the swells cooperated so the team didn’t have to wait for the next opportunity for suitable tides a couple of weeks away.”
Man, that doesn’t sound like a suitable harbor. At the mercy of the moon.
Yngvar: Stupid moon.
Yngvar,
All of the good harbors on the CA coast are already ports. The “port” facilities at Vandy are a necessary evil for ULA. All of the previous rockets it launched from Vandy could be either flown or trucked in. The same is true of SpaceX’s Falcon 9. But the Vulcan stages have too large a diameter to make either air freight or truck hauling practical. If SpaceX ever builds Starship facilities at Vandy, it will face the same problem and will likely adopt the same solution.
“If SpaceX ever builds Starship facilities at Vandy, it will face the same problem and will likely adopt the same solution.”
Well, it’s either that, or they end up building another StarFactory somewhere nearby where they can wheel it in by a local road.
Notwithstanding the recent Space Force RFI for super-heavy vertical space launch vehicle capabilities at Space Launch Complex-14, I don’t sense that SpaceX is in a burning hurry to get a SSO/polar orbit capability for Starship *just yet*, though, so that could just be a bridge they don’t have to worry about crossing for a while. But hey, I could be wrong!
Richard M,
You might, indeed, be wrong about motivation. Elon’s recently announced data-centers-in-space project is going to place those birds in precessing high-inclination orbits so as to always be in sunlight. Vandy is likely the best place to do this from in CONUS. Thus, you are likely right about the construction of another StarFactory.
Hello Dick,
I might be! Wouldn’t be the first time!
But I do think that, at the least, they won’t start a Star Factory around Vandy until they’ve completed the ones at Boca Chica and the Cape.
Unclear to me where they’d build it. Not sure the Space Force lease (if and when it happens) would allow that on base property.
But yeah, I think we are agreed that if SpaceX wants to launch Starship at any significant cadence at Vandenberg, they really need to be building them there, in the vicinity. I don’t think even Hawthorne is close enough..
Richard M,
Hawthorne isn’t close enough and, more importantly, isn’t big enough. Even if it could be made big enough, Hawthorne also has no corridor available to the L.A./Long Beach Harbor area over which Starships or Super Heavies could be moved in order to transport them up the coast to Vandy by water. Hawthorne will continue to build smaller bits of Starships for awhile – notably the flaps – but it’s not a candidate for StarFactory siting.
Considering the expressed urgency of Elon’s orbital AI data centers project, though, I think a third StarFactory at Vandy could well launch later this year – if such a thing is in the cards at all. SpaceX has a lot of experience building out major infrastructure in multiple places in parallel and, once the IPO occurs, it certainly won’t lack the financial wherewithal to build a third – or even a fourth or fifth – StarFactory.
The only universally applicable advice I can offer anent SpaceX is to always expect the unexpected.