ULA: Vulcan-Centaur 5 test flight

[DocM]

Very likely delayed from December 24th

Date: TBA

Time: TBA

Spaceport: Cape Canaveral Space Force Station

Pad: LC-41

Payload: Astrobotic Peregrine lunar lander, a NASA payload under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.

Lunar landing zone: Gruithuisen Domes (near side)

https://spacenews.com/first-vulcan-launch-likely-to-slip-to-january/

Quote

 

WASHINGTON — The first launch of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur is likely to be delayed to early January to give the company time to complete a full dress rehearsal.

In a social media post Dec. 10, Tory Bruno, chief executive of ULA, said the company was not able to complete a practice countdown called a wet dress rehearsal (WDR) two days earlier at Cape Canaveral. During the WDR, the Vulcan booster and its Centaur upper stage were loaded with propellants and went through a countdown that would stop just before engine ignition.

Bruno said that while the vehicle performed well during that countdown, there were some “routine” issues with ground equipment. “Ran the timeline long so we didn’t quite finish,” he said. “I’d like a FULL WDR before our first flight, so XMAS eve is likely out.”

 

 

[DocM]

A side note

Vulcan uses the Blue Origin BE-4 booster engine, which has had of troubled development. The manager running the engine program was fired a while back, and has recently filed a whistleblower lawsuit against Blue Origin, claiming safety problems he wanted to report to ULA but was not allowed to.

More recently, Blue's CEO was fired.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/11/30/former-blue-origin-rocket-engine-manager-alleges-wrongful-termination-for-whistleblowing-on-safety/#:~:text=The former program manager of,Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Edited December 11, 2023 by DocM

[Jim K Global Moderator]

Quote

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On Friday, ULA's ground crew rolled the Vulcan rocket and its mobile launch platform to its seaside launch pad. It was one of the last steps before the Vulcan rocket is cleared for liftoff Monday at 2:18 am EST (07:18 UTC). On Sunday afternoon, ULA engineers will gather inside a control center at Cape Canaveral to oversee an 11-hour countdown, when the Vulcan rocket will be loaded with methane, liquid hydrogen, and liquid oxygen propellants.

ULA has a 45-minute launch window to get the mission off the ground on Monday, and there is an 85 percent chance of good weather.

If the rocket doesn't take off Monday, ULA has backup launch opportunities Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Then, the company would have to stand down until January 23, a gap in launch availability constrained by the trajectory of the Vulcan rocket's payload. A commercial robotic Moon lander, developed by a Pennsylvania company named Astrobotic, is the primary passenger on the inaugural flight of Vulcan.

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Facing stiff competition from SpaceX, still an upstart in the launch business a decade ago, ULA officials decided they needed a new rocket that was cheaper to build and fly than the Atlas V and Delta IV. Ars has traced the history of Vulcan, a timeline that includes lawsuits, a change in corporate leadership, delays and setbacks, and, most recently, reports that Boeing and Lockheed Martin have put ULA up for sale.

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Ars Technica

Too bad all that equipment gets thrown in the ocean...

[DocM]

On 06/01/2024 at 06:17, Jim K said:

Ars Technica

Too bad all that equipment gets thrown in the ocean...

Also of note

ULA is up for sale by its stakeholders, Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Two potential buyers are Blue Origin (Jeff Bezos) and private equity firm Cerebus, which tends to buy companies then carve them up and sell the pieces.

I'm not sure which is worse....