ULA finally begins stacking Vulcan for next launch
After months of delay following the nozzle failure on the rocket’s second launch, ULA has now finally begun preparing a new Vulcan rocket for its third launch, carrying a number of a classified NSSL national security payloads.
Based on statements by ULA’s CEO, Tory Bruno, the company is finally about to begin the aggressive 2025 launch schedule he had promised last year.
During a media roundtable on the sidelines of the 40th Space Symposium in early April, Bruno said they planned to launch around 11 to 13 times by the end of the year. He said that would be a roughly 50-50 split between Atlas and Vulcan rockets.
The next two Vulcan launches are planned to be two NSSL Phase 2 missions: USSF-106 and USSF-87. The Vulcan rockets for both have been at the Cape since last year, but the status of the payloads hasn’t been publicly discussed given their ties to national security.
Bruno said following those two NSSL missions, ULA will launch the first Kuiper Vulcan mission and then bounce back and forth between Atlas and Vulcan flights through the end of the year.
If this schedule turns out to be true, it will be good news not only for ULA but for Amazon, as it indicates the possibility of ULA launching more than 500 Kuiper satellites before the end of the year. That will make a significant dent in its requirement to place 1,600 satellites in orbit by July 2026. At the moment only 54 are in space.
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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
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
After months of delay following the nozzle failure on the rocket’s second launch, ULA has now finally begun preparing a new Vulcan rocket for its third launch, carrying a number of a classified NSSL national security payloads.
Based on statements by ULA’s CEO, Tory Bruno, the company is finally about to begin the aggressive 2025 launch schedule he had promised last year.
During a media roundtable on the sidelines of the 40th Space Symposium in early April, Bruno said they planned to launch around 11 to 13 times by the end of the year. He said that would be a roughly 50-50 split between Atlas and Vulcan rockets.
The next two Vulcan launches are planned to be two NSSL Phase 2 missions: USSF-106 and USSF-87. The Vulcan rockets for both have been at the Cape since last year, but the status of the payloads hasn’t been publicly discussed given their ties to national security.
Bruno said following those two NSSL missions, ULA will launch the first Kuiper Vulcan mission and then bounce back and forth between Atlas and Vulcan flights through the end of the year.
If this schedule turns out to be true, it will be good news not only for ULA but for Amazon, as it indicates the possibility of ULA launching more than 500 Kuiper satellites before the end of the year. That will make a significant dent in its requirement to place 1,600 satellites in orbit by July 2026. At the moment only 54 are in space.
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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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 suppose it makes sense to keep launching Atlas to run down the stock of RD-180s and wind up the program.
But I do wonder about the supply of BE-4s.
An average of one Vulcan launch/month. There is a New Glenn scheduled to launch next month but I don’t know BO’s plans after that.
If BO succeeds in recovering New Glenn’s booster and reusing it’s BE-4s it would help.
Does make me wonder how Merlin reusability is working out these days – how many flights is SpaceX managing per engine and how many new Merlins are they manufacturing?
Color me skeptical. But I very much hope I am wrong.
If Starship is not to delay Artemis, it seems obvious that its recent failures will place an additional Starlink launch load on Falcon 9. That in turn means that Amazon probably cannot shift a significant number of launches to SpaceX, even if they wanted to, especially if the USSF starts shifting priority payloads away from ULA to SpaceX too!
BE-4 production rate is looking like a big wobbly tentpole in a lot of plans!
Ray Van Dune wrote: “If Starship is not to delay Artemis, it seems obvious that its recent failures will place an additional Starlink launch load on Falcon 9. That in turn means that Amazon probably cannot shift a significant number of launches to SpaceX, even if they wanted to, especially if the USSF starts shifting priority payloads away from ULA to SpaceX too!”
I don’t think that Starlink has any problems meeting government imposed deadlines for numbers of satellites in service to keep its frequency licenses. SpaceX can always substitute Starlink flights with paying customers such as Amazon and USSF without any significant delays in expanding the Starlink constellation.
The incentive favors launching competing constellations, as the launch income is greater than competition losses (if there are any). Starlink is still the 800 pound gorilla with the majority of the customers.