{"id":52062,"date":"2024-01-08T19:50:22","date_gmt":"2024-01-08T11:50:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/ulas-vulcan-centaur-rocket-makes-its-debut\/"},"modified":"2024-01-08T19:50:22","modified_gmt":"2024-01-08T11:50:22","slug":"ulas-vulcan-centaur-rocket-makes-its-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/ulas-vulcan-centaur-rocket-makes-its-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"ULA\u2019s Vulcan Centaur Rocket Makes its Debut"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p>Vulcan Centaur, the next-generation heavy-lift rocket from <b>United Launch<\/b> <strong>Alliance<\/strong>, made its debut early Monday morning. It was a successful first launch for the long-awaited rocket \u2014 but the customer spacecraft from <b>Astrobotic<\/b> experienced a propulsion failure after deployment.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Vulcan mission took off on Jan. 8 at 2:18 a.m. EST from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The rocket uses liquefied natural gas (LNG) \/ methane fueled booster powered by a pair of BE-4 engines provided by Blue Origin, and two graphite epoxy motor (GEM) 63XL solid rocket boosters provided by Northrop Grumman.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVulcan\u2019s inaugural launch ushers in a new, innovative capability to meet the ever-growing requirements of space launch,\u201d said Tory Bruno, ULA\u2019s president and CEO. \u201cVulcan will provide high performance and affordability while continuing to deliver our superior reliability and orbital precision for all our customers across the national security, civil and commercial markets. Vulcan continues the legacy of Atlas as the world\u2019s only high-energy architecture rocket.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The primary customer was Astrobotic\u2019s Peregrine lunar lander, carrying 21 payloads from governments, companies, universities, and NASA\u2019s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. After the launch, Astrobotic reported there was a \u201cfailure within the propulsion system causing a critical loss of propellant.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Astrobotic initially successfully received telemetry and its command, data, and propulsion systems powered on as expected. Unfortunately, there was an anomaly which Astrobotic said prevented the spacecraft from achieving a stable sun-pointing orientation. The company said it is trying to stabilize the loss and maximize the data it can capture, including alternative mission profiles.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>For ULA, this mission served as the first of two certification flights required for the U.S. Space Force\u2019s certification process. The second certification mission (Cert-2) is planned to launch in the coming months for Sierra Space\u2019s Dream Chaser, and ULA plans to launch a national security mission by summer.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Vulcan rocket has a backlog of about 70 launches, a mix of government and commercial missions valued in the \u201cbillions\u201d of dollars, Bruno recently said. This backlog includes 38 launches for Amazon\u2019s Kuiper constellation and National Security Space Launch (NSSL) missions as well.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Monday morning\u2019s launch took place after a series of delays. When the rocket was introduced in 2015, it was expected to enter service in 2019. The rocket was also set to enter service in May 2023, but the Centaur V upper stage exploded during qualification testing in March 2023, grounding the launch campaign while ULA worked on a fix. Routine issues during the wet dress rehearsal for this launch campaign caused the mission to slip to 2024.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith the success of ULA\u2019s Vulcan rocket, our country has more tools to explore space. Spaceflight is a daring adventure, and Astrobotic is making progress for CLPS deliveries and Artemis. NASA will continue to expand our reach in the cosmos with our commercial partners,\u201d NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement on the launch.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vulcan Centaur, the next-generation heavy-lift rocket from United Launch Alliance, made its debut early Monday morning. It was a successful first launch for the long-awaited rocket \u2014 but the customer spacecraft from Astrobotic experienced a propulsion failure after deployment.&nbsp;&nbsp; The Vulcan mission took off on Jan. 8 at 2:18 a.m. EST from Space Launch Complex-41 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52063,"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-52062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52062"}],"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=52062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}