TITUSVILLE, Fla.— After a decade of development, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket is finally on the launch pad for its inaugural launch, carrying not just a lunar lander but also the company’s future.
ULA rolled out its first Vulcan rocket to the pad at Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Jan. 5, ahead of a launch scheduled for 2:18 a.m. Eastern Jan. 8. The rocket’s primary payload is Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander.
In briefings after the rollout, ULA executives said they were not working any technical issues with the rocket ahead of its launch. There is a 45-minute launch window for the Jan. 8 attempt, with forecasts projecting an 85% chance of acceptable weather. There are additional launch opportunities Jan. 9 to 11, but with launch windows less than 10 minutes long each day and with less favorable weather in the forecast.
The mission, designated Cert-1 by ULA, is Vulcan’s first launch and the first of two certification flights the company needs to perform to be approved by the U.S. Space Force to launch national security payloads. “This certification flight is the final step in development of Vulcan Centaur,” said Mark Peller, vice president of Vulcan development at ULA.
The rocket’s Centaur upper stage will perform two burns before releasing Peregrine into a highly elliptical orbit about 50 minutes after liftoff. ULA will then perform additional tests of Centaur, including a third burn of its RL10 engines, over the next three and a half hours.
“We’ll use this opportunity of this flight test to validate a lot of our future mission objectives,” said Gary Wentz, vice president of government and commercial programs at ULA. That includes a simulation of a long-duration mission, like those required for launches that send payloads directly to geostationary orbit. “This demonstration will capture thermal data. It will enable us to anchor our models for extended-duration…
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