{"id":10058,"date":"2024-07-27T22:28:12","date_gmt":"2024-07-27T14:28:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/ula-prepares-for-final-atlas-5-launch-supporting-a-national-security-payload\/"},"modified":"2024-07-27T22:28:12","modified_gmt":"2024-07-27T14:28:12","slug":"ula-prepares-for-final-atlas-5-launch-supporting-a-national-security-payload","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/ula-prepares-for-final-atlas-5-launch-supporting-a-national-security-payload\/","title":{"rendered":"ULA prepares for final Atlas 5 launch supporting a national security payload"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
United Launch Alliance rolled its Atlas 5 551 rocket to the launchpad at Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) on Saturday, July 27, 2024, ahead of the USSF-51 launch on Tuesday, July 30. Image: Will Robinson-Smith\/Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

United Launch Alliance is preparing to launch an Atlas 5 rocket its 58th and final national security mission on Tuesday. The United States Space Force-51 (USSF-51) mission will also be the 100th national security mission launch for ULA.<\/p>\n

Following the completion of a launch readiness review on Friday, ULA rolled the rocket to the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. First motion came shortly after noon on Saturday with the journey wrapping up after 12:30 p.m. EDT.<\/p>\n

Liftoff is targeting Tuesday, July 30, during a three-hour window that opens at 6:45 a.m. EDT (1045 UTC).<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a bittersweet moment for us. I\u2019ve had the privilege of sitting console for the very first national security Atlas launch in 2007, STP-1 (Space Test Program 1) in March of that year and here we are with our last national security Atlas,\u201d said Col. Jim Horne, Senior Materiel Leader of the Launch Execution Delta. \u201cI do want to say thank you to the entire team, the government and ULA. It\u2019s been a strong partnership over these last almost 20 years on this program and this has been our workhorse vehicle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because of the nature of the launch, Horne declined to go into detail about the mission or if the flight was carrying a single payload or more than one.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t say much about that his is a very important mission for national security in this time of great power competition, but that\u2019s really all we can say at this time,\u201d Horne said.<\/p>\n

The Atlas 5 launching the USSF-51 payload will fly in a 551 configuration, meaning it will be supported by five solid rocket boosters and a 17-foot (5 meter) diameter short payload fairing. The full stack stands about 196 feet (59.7 meters) tall.<\/p>\n

Gary Wentz, ULA\u2019s vice president of Government and Commercial Programs, said following this mission, out of the remaining 15 Atlas 5 rockets remaining, nine will fly in the 551 configuration in support of Amazon\u2019s Project Kuiper constellation.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time you fly you learn a lot. And we\u2019re flying five GEM 63\u2019s on this mission,\u201d Wentz said. \u201cSo, we\u2019ll learn from that, continue to get data and going forward, we\u2019ll apply that to the subsequent Atlas missions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Passing the baton<\/h4>\n

This final mission as part of the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) for the Atlas 5 rocket marks a pivot point for ULA. Following the USSF-51 launch, ULA will turn its full attention to its second certification flight of its Vulcan rocket following a successful debut in January.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019ll do after this mission flies is we\u2019ll do some checkout of the ground system with the [mobile launch platform], the Atlas MLP, verify all of that\u2019s good, then we\u2019ll bring in the Vulcan launch platform, do checkout of it and immediately go into erection of the booster and prepping for the Cert-2 mission,\u201d Wentz said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe won\u2019t waste any time. It\u2019ll be within a week and a half to two weeks we\u2019ll have the hardware in process for the Cert. flight.\u201d<\/p>\n

As ground teams at the Cape were preparing to roll out the Atlas 5 rocket, ULA teams in Decatur watched as the barge named \u2018RocketShip\u2019 set sail with the third Vulcan booster on board. It will be used for the first NSSL mission a Vulcan rocket launches: USSF-87.<\/p>\n

\"\"
A Vulcan booster sits inside United Launch
Alliance\u2019s Horizontal Integration Facility at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. It will support the second certification flight of the rocket prior to launching national security payloads. Image: Will Robinson-Smith\/Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dr. Walt Lauderdale, the mission director for the USSF-51 mission, said the close working relationship between the U.S. Space Force and ULA during the development of Vulcan. He said that the dozens of missions flown on Atlas are also helping to inform him and his teams as they work through the certification process.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we look at working with ULA, that partnership, it\u2019s really having that intimate knowledge and understanding of the vehicle systems, the ground systems, how they interface,\u201d Lauderdale said. \u201cYou can do all the modeling in the world, but there\u2019s no replacement for actual, real live data, real data from the vehicle and the system.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCert-1 was a terrific flight. It allowed us to validate a lot of things that we\u2019ve worked with them up to that point and looking to Cert-2 as Col. Horne just said, its gives us an opportunity to take all that we know from the models, all the qualifications, all the testing that we\u2019ve done, and make sure that there\u2019s no surprises,\u201d Lauderdale added. \u201cThat\u2019s really what we\u2019re looking for for Cert-2 is to make sure that there\u2019s no surprises and that it\u2019s well bounded by our experience and our qualification knowledge.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that really does set the stage for us as we move forward into those Vulcan launches to go forward with confidence. Everything is looking good at this point and we\u2019re not done til we\u2019re done.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

United Launch Alliance rolled its Atlas 5 551 rocket to the launchpad at Space Launch Complex 41 (SLC-41) on Saturday, July 27, 2024, ahead of the USSF-51 launch on Tuesday, July 30. Image: Will Robinson-Smith\/Spaceflight Now United Launch Alliance is preparing to launch an Atlas 5 rocket its 58th and final national security mission on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10058"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10058\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}