{"id":45605,"date":"2023-12-21T18:56:23","date_gmt":"2023-12-21T10:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/for-the-first-time-ulas-vulcan-rocket-is-fully-stacked-at-cape-canaveral\/"},"modified":"2023-12-21T18:56:23","modified_gmt":"2023-12-21T10:56:23","slug":"for-the-first-time-ulas-vulcan-rocket-is-fully-stacked-at-cape-canaveral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/for-the-first-time-ulas-vulcan-rocket-is-fully-stacked-at-cape-canaveral\/","title":{"rendered":"For the first time, ULA\u2019s Vulcan rocket is fully stacked at Cape Canaveral"},"content":{"rendered":"

United Launch Alliance\u2019s first Vulcan rocket has been fully assembled at Cape Canaveral, Florida, in preparation for its inaugural flight next month.<\/p>\n

Technicians hoisted the Vulcan rocket\u2019s payload fairing, containing a commercial lunar lander from Astrobotic, on top of the launch vehicle Wednesday morning at ULA\u2019s Vertical Integration Facility. This milestone followed the early morning transfer of the payload fairing from a nearby facility where Astrobotic\u2019s lunar lander was fueled for its flight to the Moon.<\/p>\n

ULA\u2019s new rocket has rolled between its vertical hangar and the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station several times for countdown rehearsals and fueling tests. But ULA only needed the Vulcan rocket\u2019s first stage and upper stage to complete those tests. The addition of the payload shroud Wednesday marked the first time ULA has fully stacked a Vulcan rocket, standing some 202 feet (61.6 meters) tall, still surrounded by scaffolding and work platforms inside its assembly building.<\/p>\n

This moves the launch company closer to the first flight of Vulcan, the vehicle slated to replace ULA\u2019s Atlas V and Delta IV rockets. After some final checkouts and a holiday break, ground crews will transport the Vulcan rocket to its launch pad in preparation for liftoff at 2:18 am ET (07:18 UTC) on January 8.<\/p>\n

The launch was previously scheduled for December 24, but ULA delayed the flight until the next launch window to resolve ground system issues uncovered during one of the recent Vulcan countdown rehearsals. Astrobotic\u2019s first robotic lunar lander, named Peregrine Mission One, only has a few days per month when it can depart Earth and take a course toward the Moon. The launch and trajectory must be timed to allow the spacecraft to reach its landing site with the proper lighting conditions.<\/p>\n

First full stack<\/h2>\n

United Launch Alliance, a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, has been under pressure from rival SpaceX for the last few years. While SpaceX has launched more than 90 times this year, ULA\u2019s rockets have only flown three times as the company winds down its Atlas V and Delta IV programs.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

One Delta IV-Heavy rocket remains in ULA\u2019s inventory. It\u2019s supposed to launch next year with a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, the US government\u2019s spy satellite agency. There are 17 Atlas V rockets left to fly.<\/p>\n

With Vulcan, ULA is poised to ramp up its launch rate. Tory Bruno, the company\u2019s chief executive, says ULA has sold 70 Vulcan launches\u2014more than half to commercial customers and the rest to the US military. Amazon has booked 38 Vulcan missions to deploy satellites for its Project Kuiper broadband network. Vulcan will initially be fully expendable, but ULA plans to introduce engine recovery and reuse later this decade.<\/p>\n

ULA\u2019s goal is to launch an average of two Vulcan rockets per month by the end of 2025. This would be a remarkably fast launch cadence just two years after the first flight of Vulcan. For comparison, it took longer for the Atlas V rocket and SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 to get to four flights.<\/p>\n

\n

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Astrobotic\u2019s Peregrine lander was recently encapsulated inside the Vulcan rocket\u2019s payload fairing.<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

The Vulcan rocket was originally slated to launch in 2019 but faced repeated delays, primarily due to late deliveries of rocket engines from Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos\u2019 space company. ULA bypassed a launch opportunity in May after a Vulcan upper stage exploded during a ground test.<\/p>\n

Unlike the debuts of most rockets, the Vulcan will launch with a functioning payload. Astrobotic\u2019s uncrewed Peregrine Mission One will carry 20 payloads to the lunar surface, including five for NASA through the agency\u2019s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. This will be the first mission to launch under the CLPS initiative, which NASA set up in 2018 to purchase commercial transportation services to the Moon for scientific instruments and experiments.<\/p>\n

Last month, Astrobotic\u2019s engineers completed hands-on work on the Peregrine lander before ULA closed it inside Vulcan\u2019s payload fairing. The Peregrine lander stands about 6.2 feet (1.9 meters) tall. Photos released by ULA showing its encapsulation inside the Vulcan rocket\u2019s payload compartment show the lander dwarfed by the composite fairings.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019ve been following the lunar industry, you understand landing on the Moon\u2019s surface is incredibly difficult,\u201d said John Thornton, CEO of Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic. \u201cWith that said, our team has continuously surpassed expectations and demonstrated incredible ingenuity during flight reviews, spacecraft testing, and major hardware integrations. We are ready for launch and for landing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Vulcan rocket will give Astrobotic\u2019s lunar lander quite a ride. Two methane-fueled BE-4 engines, built by Jeff Bezos\u2019s space company, Blue Origin, will power the core stage of Vulcan. A pair of strap-on solid rocket boosters from Northrop Grumman will give the rocket an extra burst of energy off the launch pad. And a Centaur upper stage, with two RL10 engines from Aerojet Rocketdyne, will finish the job of deploying the Peregrine lander around 40 minutes after liftoff to begin its journey.<\/p>\n

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Astrobotic\u2019s Peregrine lander is buttoned up for launch inside the Vulcan rocket\u2019s payload fairing.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n United Launch Alliance<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

The Peregrine lander will initially enter orbit around the Moon, then make its final descent to the lunar surface on February 23. The target landing site is near the Gruithuisen Domes, a region in the northern hemisphere on the near side of the Moon.<\/p>\n

IM-1 launch on hold<\/h2>\n

Meanwhile, another commercial Moon lander undergoing launch preparations at Cape Canaveral is facing its own launch delay. This mission, managed by Intuitive Machines, will miss its mid-January launch window and is now scheduled for mid-February on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.<\/p>\n

Intuitive Machines announced the delay Tuesday, blaming \u201cshifts in the SpaceX launch manifest\u201d caused by \u201cunfavorable weather conditions.\u201d This shift in SpaceX\u2019s launch schedule refers to the delay of a Falcon Heavy launch with the US military\u2019s semi-secret X-37B spaceplane, which was supposed to take off earlier this month but is now set for no earlier than December 28.<\/p>\n

But it wasn\u2019t the weather that caused the Falcon Heavy delay. A ground system problem and unspecified issues with the rocket itself were responsible for the schedule slip.<\/p>\n

The Falcon Heavy will lift off from the same launch pad needed for the Intuitive Machines IM-1 mission. It typically takes about three weeks for SpaceX to reconfigure Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) between Falcon Heavy and Falcon 9 launches, leaving no time to ready the pad for the IM-1 launch window opening on January 12.<\/p>\n

The IM-1 mission has to launch from LC-39A because SpaceX has outfitted this pad to fuel Intuitive Machines\u2019 Nova-C lander with cryogenic methane and liquid oxygen shortly before liftoff.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Intuitive Machines said its robotic lunar lander \u201cremains ready\u201d to fly. \u201cSince arriving in Florida, the IM-1 lunar lander has completed major system tests, verification, and certification milestones and is prepared for integration with SpaceX\u2019s Falcon 9 rocket,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

United Launch Alliance\u2019s first Vulcan rocket has been fully assembled at Cape Canaveral, Florida, in preparation for its inaugural flight next month. Technicians hoisted the Vulcan rocket\u2019s payload fairing, containing a commercial lunar lander from Astrobotic, on top of the launch vehicle Wednesday morning at ULA\u2019s Vertical Integration Facility. This milestone followed the early morning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45606,"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":[750,4518],"class_list":["post-45605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-united-launch-alliance","tag-vulcan-rocket"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45605"}],"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=45605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45605\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}