Tag: United Launch Alliance
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Amazon is getting ready to launch a lot of broadband satellites
Within a few years, Amazon hopes to be building and launching up to 80 satellites per month to populate the company’s Kuiper constellation, a $10 billion network that is similar to fleets already operated by SpaceX and OneWeb providing Internet connectivity around the world. In the next six months, Amazon plans to begin production of…
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Someone new will join the US military’s roster of launch contractors
The US Space Force, long content with using just one or two contractors to carry the military’s most vital satellites into orbit, has announced it will seek a third provider for national security launch services in its next multibillion-dollar round of rocket procurement. This is good news for Blue Origin, which has long sought to…
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Rocket Report: Rocket Lab’s next step in reuse, Blue Origin engine explodes
Welcome to Edition 6.02 of the Rocket Report! I’m on my third week at Ars, and the space beat is as busy as ever. Going forward, Eric and I will alternate work on the Rocket Report every other week. SpaceX broke its own booster reuse record this week, and a Chinese company made history with…
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Inaugural Vulcan Launch Targeting Late 2023 After Anomalies
United Launch Alliance (ULA) says despite recent anomalies involving their Centaur V upper stage and the BE-4 engines built by Blue Origin, Vulcan should still fly this year, although behind schedule. Vulcan is ULA’s successor to the Atlas V and Delta IV heavy-lift rocket families, both of which are scheduled to be retired. The new…
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Blue Origin’s next-gen BE-4 rocket engine fails dramatically during testing in Texas
Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine undergoes a test firing in Texas in 2019. (Blue Origin File Photo) Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture confirmed that one of its BE-4 rocket engines suffered a significant anomaly during testing at its West Texas facility in late June. The incident first came to light today in a report…
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ULA shipping Vulcan upper stage back to factory for more work
United Launch Alliance technicians at Cape Canaveral, Florida, have partially disassembled the first Vulcan rocket to send the launch vehicle’s upper stage back to its factory for reinforcements to its paper-thin steel fuel tank. A test article for the Vulcan rocket’s Centaur V upper stage exploded on March 29 during a structural test at NASA’s…
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After tough start this year, United Launch Alliance can turn things around tonight
Once the most formidable rocket company in the United States, and arguably the world, United Launch Alliance has had a really difficult start to this year. At the beginning of 2023, the company’s CEO, Tory Bruno, expressed confidence that the long-awaited Vulcan rocket would make its debut flight in May. During a teleconference with reporters,…
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Penultimate Delta rocket to launch next month on ULA’s first mission of 2023
ULA’s Delta 4-Heavy rocket lifted vertical on pad 37B at Cape Canaveral ahead of launch on the NROL-68 mission. Credit: United Launch Alliance United Launch Alliance’s second-to-last Delta 4-Heavy rocket is scheduled to blast off from Cape Canaveral April 20 with a classified cargo for the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency, a mission that will…
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SLS makes successful debut flight, sending Artemis I to the Moon
NASA and the SLS teams have successfully launched the agency’s super heavy lift rocket which will facilitate humanity’s return to the Moon: this time to establish a permanent presence on our closest celestial neighbor. The launch of Artemis I occurred on Wednesday, Nov. 16 at 1:47 AM EST (06:47 UTC). Should teams have required additional…
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Atlas rocket bids farewell to California as ULA readies for Vulcan
The Atlas rocket family, a staple of the US launch industry since June 11, 1957, ended its West Coast operations on Nov. 10 with the launch of an Atlas V rocket with the JPSS-2 weather satellite. Liftoff of the mission from Space Launch Complex-3 East (SLC-3E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, is scheduled for…