{"id":10185,"date":"2024-02-13T00:03:25","date_gmt":"2024-02-12T16:03:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/cleanest-first-flight-ula-president-reflects-on-inaugural-vulcan-launch-and-future-of-program\/"},"modified":"2024-02-13T00:03:25","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T16:03:25","slug":"cleanest-first-flight-ula-president-reflects-on-inaugural-vulcan-launch-and-future-of-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/cleanest-first-flight-ula-president-reflects-on-inaugural-vulcan-launch-and-future-of-program\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Cleanest first flight,\u2019 ULA president reflects on inaugural Vulcan launch and future of program"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The inaugural Vulcan rocket, powered by two Blue Origin-built BE-4 engines, lifts off from SLC-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Jan. 8, 2024. Image: Adam Bernstein\/Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

United Launch Alliance entered an important new era for the company with the debut of its Vulcan rocket in early January. The flight was one that was highly anticipated by those both inside and outside ULA and, by all metrics, it was a highly successful mission for ULA.<\/p>\n

To mark a month after this inaugural launch, Spaceflight Now sat down with ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno for a discussion about that first certification flight and the year ahead for the company and the rocket.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was the cleanest first flight I\u2019ve ever seen. I\u2019ve personally been involved with about three dozen of them,\u201d Bruno said. Prior to his time with ULA, Bruno was the vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin\u2019s Strategic and Missile Defense Systems.<\/p>\n

Bruno was among the launch team on console during the countdown, which was run from the Advanced Spaceflight Operations Center (ASOC) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. He said the lack of issues during the countdown threw him for a loop at times.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a very clean countdown. Not an exaggeration, true story, there\u2019s probably 25 minutes or so, I\u2019m sitting on console, silence and I thought my headset was busted,\u201d Bruno said. \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018Maddie, find IT, my headset is broken.\u2019 They come back, \u2018No, Tory, there\u2019s literally nothing happening. It\u2019s just that quiet.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Bruno said the only issue came towards the end of the roughly 320-second first stage burn of the Vulcan booster: it ended about 1.2 seconds early. He described that as a thermal modeling issue where the last bit of propellant that was moving through the feed line was warmer than anticipated, which triggered the shutdown.<\/p>\n

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ULA\u2019s Vulcan rocket launches on its first certification flight, carrying Astrobotic\u2019s Peregrine lunar lander onboard. Image: Michael Cain\/Spaceflight Now<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThat was less than a sigma, like 7\/10 of a sigma in performance, which would be well within flight-to-flight variation. So, that is a post-flight observation,\u201d Bruno explained. \u201cObviously, we knew it did that in real time. Afterwords is when we understood it was a thermal modeling issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bruno said the likely solution will be to adjust the amount of propellant reserve to account for that. He said that work will be done in time, but that it isn\u2019t a pressing issue for their next several flights.<\/p>\n

He said while that was the only issue of note, they will continue reviewing the data through the end of February. The reason for that is because with data handoffs that happen between ground stations during flight, there are pieces of the puzzle that need to be fitted together in a thorough, post-flight analysis.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver time, all this other data comes in, it gets cleaned up, it gets synchronized in time and events because obviously data you collect in Guam versus real time data down from TDRSS (Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System) is not going to be exactly in the same time reference. So you have to do all of that manually and then you comb through it,\u201d Bruno explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, that\u2019s why it\u2019ll take until then. They haven\u2019t found anything yet. It\u2019s just literally the cleanest first flight I\u2019ve ever experienced. It was like the 90th Atlas, not the first Vulcan.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dream Chaser and Cert-2<\/h4>\n

With the first flight of Vulcan now largely in the rearview mirror, the ULA team is pressing ahead with the second certification mission. The payload is Sierra Space\u2019s Dream Chaser spaceplane on a cargo supply mission to the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

Bruno said they don\u2019t need to wait for the conclusion of the data review to continue the momentum on this next mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll just continue to build and ship and transport and be ready. We\u2019ll do that in parallel because it\u2019ll finish up pretty soon,\u201d Bruno said. \u201cWe\u2019re probably 20, 25 days away from completely finishing every last little bit of data review. So, no reason to wait for that. We\u2019ll work in parallel.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Bruno spoke with Spaceflight Now on Jan. 31, he said that both the Vulcan booster and the Centaur 5 upper-stage were built and that the Blue Origin-built BE-4 engines that power the first stage were out in Texas for testing.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce they come through, then we can finish it and we\u2019ll be ready to go,\u201d Bruno said. \u201cAnd then we\u2019ll be waiting on our payload, which is the way we like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Feb. 5, Bruno posted to social media, stating that one of the BE-4 engines for the Cert-2 mission inside the rocket factory in Decatur, Alabama. A couple days later he shared an image of the engine as well.<\/p>\n