ULA moves its Vulcan rocket to the launch pad ahead of its second test flight – Spaceflight Now

United Launch Alliance returned to the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 with its Vulcan rocket before the vehicle’s second launch. ULA needs to successfully fly this second certification mission before it can begin launching national security payloads for the U.S. Space Force and National Reconnaissance Office.

The mission, dubbed Cert-2, is targeted to launch on Friday, October 4, during a three-hour launch period beginning at 6 a.m. EDT (1000 UTC). ULA completed stacking of the rocket on Sunday, September 21.

After a period of dodgy weather caused by Hurricane Helen, Monday proved to be a sunny, if hot and humid, day on Florida’s Space Coast as the rocket exited the Vertical Integration Facility to begin the 550-meter (0.34 mile) journey into space. Launch pad. The vehicle’s first motion was recorded at 10:27 a.m. EDT (1427 UTC) with the rocket reaching its final destination, known as a “hard landing,” about an hour later.

After launching Monday morning, the 202-foot (61.6-meter) rocket will undergo tank testing on Tuesday, called a “wet dress rehearsal.” When fully fueled, this type of Vulcan rocket, called VC2S, weighs about 1.5 million pounds (663,000 kg).

There are no plans to conduct a static fire test of the two BE-4 engines on the rocket base before launch.

The mission will carry an inert payload, meaning nothing is designed to separate from the Centaur 5 rocket’s upper stage after the payload shrouds are deployed. During a June conference call with members of the press, ULA President and CEO Torey Bruno said the Cert-2 flight would carry some technology experiments and demonstrations “relevant to the development of technology for future introduction into the Centaur 5 upper stage.”

“We’ll be doing some maneuvers in the upper stage just to fully demonstrate the limits of what Centaur 5 can do. We’ll measure its behavior relative to its degree of cooling,” Bruno said during the June 26 conference call. “It’s clearly an upper stage.” Very long is required for these high power direct injection orbiters, so they last a really long time. But you know, as you might imagine, we never planned or properly designed a mission when the propellant would run out or when the boil-off and an acceptable amount of propellant would be consumed. We have some margins and setbacks from that, but this is an opportunity for us to get some more direct measurements on how this boiling behavior occurs. So, we’ll measure that, along with these maneuvers.

“We will also have experiments associated with this dead payload that will help us understand how to extend the duration of the upper stage and what the practical limits of this are in the future.”

Since then, Bruno and ULA have remained fairly quiet regarding the details of those technical demonstrations and experiments. In a sarcastic social media response to a question about Cert-2’s payload, Bruno simply said: “Top secret sauce. It will be a while before we share more.”

ULA made the decision not to carry the customer payload aboard the rocket after Sierra Space informed them that their Dream Chaser spaceplane would not be ready for its planned launch to the International Space Station.

Like Northrop Grumman and SpaceX, Sierra Space is also part of the Commercial Resupply Service 2 (CRS-2) contract with NASA. In a 2016 press release, Sierra Space said: “Dream Chaser will provide at least six cargo delivery missions to and from the International Space Station between 2019 and 2024.”

On September 27, Sierra Space said it had completed a test to verify that the Passive Common Docking Mechanism (PCBM) meets NASA standards to allow safe docking with the International Space Station. Earlier this month, it said its Shooting Star charging unit had completed its acoustic testing.

“Our innovative Shooting Star cargo module provides the ability to provide additional capacity, flexibility and power for a wide range of missions,” Tom Weiss, CEO of Sierra Space, said in a statement. “For our first mission, Shooting Star will carry critical science, food and cargo to the International Space Station for NASA, and our cargo modules will continue to play an essential role in bringing supplies into space as we build an economy in low Earth orbit through commercial spaceflight.”

The four-day test campaign was designed to ensure it could “withstand the acoustic environment of a launch on a Vulcan Centaur rocket.”

Our team successfully completed the joint ISS test of the Passive Common Berthing Mechanism (PCBM). This test demonstrated that the PCBM meets NASA standards. It included leakage tests and alignment checks, ensuring the integrity of the docking interface between the Dream Chaser and the International Space Station. pic.twitter.com/qvHCICdFT6

— Sierra Space (@SierraSpaceCo) September 27, 2024

Second round

Completing the Cert-2 mission is critical to ULA. This will not only allow the company to launch national security payloads using the Vulcan rocket, but will also strengthen its position in bidding on future NASA missions.

In a September 2024 interview with Ars Technica, Tim Dunn, senior launch manager for NASA’s Launch Services Program based at Kennedy Space Center, said that achieving a successful flight with Cert-1 “allowed them to be in a position to bid on our missions.” “. “.

“A second Cert flight that will then demonstrate some of the other capabilities of the rocket allows more data for our certification team working in coordination with the US Space Force certification team,” Dunn told Ars’ Stephen Clark. “We do a lot of intergovernmental collaborations on certification work, so it gives us all more data, more confidence in this launch vehicle to meet all the needs that we think we’re going to have in the next decade.”

However, the success of the second Vulcan flight does not automatically mean that ULA will move on to these important government missions. During an appearance at the Air, Space & Cyber ​​Conference earlier this month, Space News reported that Brig. “It’s not surprising that if they have a clean flight, they’re automatically certified,” said Gen. Christine Banzenhagen, who serves as executive director of the U.S. Space Force’s Assured Space Access Program.

“We’ll have a lot of data that we’ll have to review afterward just to make sure everything is up to expectations. We’ll need some time after that to make sure everything was clean,” Banzenhagen said. “We’re definitely looking forward to them getting accredited.” “Complete, so we can begin national security space launches.”

During his comments in June, Bruno said they intend to launch USSF-106 and USSF-87 before the end of the calendar year. The two Vulcan rockets that will be used to support this mission were delivered to the Cape earlier this year before ULA sent its Rocketship barge to do some work in dry dock.

While it awaits these future launches, ULA also continues to work on the second VIF located at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station as well as the launch infrastructure at Space Launch Complex 3 (SLC-3) located at Vandenberg Space Force Base. Both assets will go live in 2025, Bruno said on social media.

Installation of a new swing arm above the umbilical tower on SLC-3. The upper swing arm will serve the Centaur V’s hydrogen slot, while the lower swing arm will house the engine coolant lines and gas lines as well as deliver hydrogen and LOX to the Centaur V.
#VulcanRocket . pic.twitter.com/PEJFkE0cjP

– Tory Bruno (@torybruno) September 28, 2024