Washington: Following its launch, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur heavy-lift rocket could be on its way to being certified by the Space Force to launch critical national security payloads under its National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program.
While the final approval for Vulcan awaits a Space Force review of the technical data from the launch — including what appeared to be a mid-launch anomaly — a successful launch was the critical hurdle for ULA as two “certification” launches are required for any rocket to be given a thumbs up to fly NSSL missions.
The first Vulcan launch was in January, nearly four years later than originally scheduled, and Pentagon officials have been anxiously awaiting today’s success, concerned about military payloads backing up on the ground. Today’s launch also came after about a month’s delay, with ULA CEO Tory Bruno back in June saying the company was planning a flight in early September.
Today’s takeoff was first briefly delayed by a technical issue, and then during the launch some material unexpectedly appeared to come off one of the boosters, but the flight did not appear effected. Bruno addressed the issue on the ULA’s webcast, saying the launch put its payload into space where it intended and the trajectory was “nominal throughout.”
“We did, however, have an observation on SRB [solid rocket booster] number 1, and so we will be off looking into that after the mission is complete,” he said. “Other than that the flight was nominal.”
Bruno appeared confident whatever the incident was, it wouldn’t stand in the way of ULA’s NSSL certification. “For ULA, we designed this rocket for the national security mission space. Completing the second certification flight successfully allows us to begin those missions that are urgent and important to the country,” he said.
