ULA’s Vulcan rocket launched the first certification mission
ULA’s Vulcan rocket launched the first certification mission
On January 8th, 2024 the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan VC2S rocket launched the first certification mission from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, USA. The Cert-1 flight test included two payloads: the Peregrine Lunar Lander, Peregrine Mission One (PM1) for Astrobotic as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative to deliver science and technology to the lunar surface and the Celestis Memorial Spaceflights deep space Voyager mission known as the Enterprise Flight.
With the Vulcan launch, ULA marked the beginning of a new era of space capabilities with the successful launch of its next generation Vulcan rocket from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The Vulcan provides industry-leading capabilities to deliver any payload, at any time, to any orbit.
The Vulcan launcher will provide high performance and affordability while continuing to deliver our superior reliability and orbital precision for all ULA’s customers across the national security, civil and commercial markets. Vulcan continues the legacy of Atlas as the world’s only high-energy architecture rocket.
Vulcan will leverage the world’s highest-performing upper stage to deliver on ULA’s industry-leading legacy of reliability and precision. Centaur V’s matchless flexibility and extreme endurance enables the most complex orbital insertions within the most challenging and clandestine orbits.
The first certification flight (Cert-1) mission included two payloads: Astrobotic’s first Peregrine Lunar Lander, Peregrine Mission One (PM1), as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative to deliver science and technology to the lunar surface, and the Celestis’ Memorial Spaceflights deep space Voyager mission, the Enterprise Flight.
The Cert-1 mission served as the first of two certification flights required for the U.S. Space Force’s certification process. The second certification mission (Cert-2) is planned to launch in the coming months, followed by a summer launch of the first Vulcan mission to support national security space.
ULA sold more than 70 Vulcan launches to date, including 38 missions for Amazon’s Project Kuiper and multiple national security space launch missions as the part of the country’s Phase 2 launch procurement.
About ULA
Launch Company United Launch Alliance (ULA) is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing Defense, Space & Security. ULA was founded in December 2006 by combining the teams at these companies that provided spacecraft launch services to the government of the United States. U.S. government launch customers included the Department of Defense and NASA, as well as other organizations. With ULA, Lockheed and Boeing held a monopoly on military launches for more than a decade, until the US Air Force awarded a GPS satellite contract to SpaceX in 2016.
ULA has 3,400 employees working at sites across the USA. Program management, engineering, test, and mission support functions are headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Manufacturing, assembly and integration operations are located in Decatur in Alabama and Harlingen in Texas. ULA’s launch operations are located at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, USA.
ULA used three expendable launch systems, Delta II, Delta IV and Atlas V. The Atlas and Delta launch vehicles have been used for more than 50 years and launched approximately 1,300 missions to carry a variety of payloads including weather-, communication- and national security satellites, as well as deep space and interplanetary exploration missions in support of scientific research. ULA also provides launch services for non-government satellites: Lockheed Martin retains the rights to market Atlas commercially.