United Launch Alliance is set to send its much-anticipated heavy-lift rocket into space, as it endeavors to compete against launch titan SpaceX. The first flight test and certification mission for ULA’s Vulcan Centaur rocket is on track to launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Jan. 8. Vulcan’s full launch capabilities will allow it to compete in the space market and support a range of missions, including commercial, civil, and national security operations. But even with Vulcan entering the launch market, SpaceX will still have an advantage over ULA once SpaceX’s Starship mega-rocket becomes operational.
ULA is looking at reusing the engines “downstream,” maintaining that the current version of Vulcan is competitive regardless. In contrast, SpaceX dominated the 2023 launch market, launching more rockets than ULA. ULA had a monopoly on space launch until SpaceX came onto the scene in the 2010s, but Falcon 9 has since become the workhorse in the market for medium and heavy launch vehicles. The launch of ULA’s new Vulcan rocket has been pushed back several times, in part due to delays in developing the main engine, BE-4, and also because of a post-qualification-test explosion in March 2023. The launch of ULA’s new Vulcan rocket has been pushed back several times. The Monday launch is one of two certification flights ULA must complete before it can start flying missions for the Space Force. Vulcan’s first national security mission will be USSF-106, launching an experimental navigation satellite to geostationary-Earth orbit and also include a classified program. Vulcan has six launches planned in 2024, four of which are national security missions, and ULA plans to increase its cadence to 28 launches in 2025.
