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.<\/p>\n
Vulcan is ULA\u2019s successor to the Atlas V and Delta IV heavy-lift rocket families, both of which are scheduled to be retired. The new vehicle uses liquid natural gas and liquid oxygen in its first stage, which is powered by two BE-4 engines. The upper stage, meanwhile, uses liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to propel satellites to their deployment orbits.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Centaur Anomaly<\/p>\n
Tory Bruno, the CEO of ULA, says all components of the company\u2019s next-generation Vulcan rocket have been certified for flight except for the upper stage, known as Centaur V. The company currently uses an upper stage with a similar name, Centaur III, which is flown on Atlas V.<\/p>\n
The main difference between the two is the size, in which Centaur V is nearly double the size of its predecessor.<\/p>\n
During a propellant loading and tank pressurization test at NASA\u2019s Marshall Space Flight Center on March 29, 2023, a test article of the Centaur V upper stage was destroyed after a hydrogen leak ignited. Until this point, the first launch was scheduled for May 4 from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, carrying the private Peregrine lunar lander and two prototype Amazon Kuiper satellites.<\/p>\n