Delays in the test flight certification of the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan rocket’s Centaur V upper stage will not result in any extra launches for SpaceX for the U.S. Space Force (USSF) National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program, Space Force’s Space Systems Command (SSC) said on Sept. 8.
ULA is a partnership between Boeing [BA] and Lockheed Martin [LMT].
In June, SSC assigned 12 NSSL missions to SpaceX and ULA–six for each provider–under the fiscal 2023 NSSL Phase 2 Launch Service Procurement (LSP) contract (Defense Daily, June 8).
Following the retirement of ULA’s Delta IV next year, “it will be superseded by ULA’s Vulcan, which will lift the next generation of national security and commercial satellites into space with its own innovations,” SSC has said.
If Vulcan were not ready to fly by the end of this year, ULA was to offer its Atlas V to USSF at the same price as an “alternative launch vehicle” for NSSL Phase 2 flights.
SSC did not directly answer what would happen should Vulcan’s Centaur V upper stage not be test flight certified until next year.
“ULA is on track to fly the first Vulcan at the end of this calendar year and the first NSSL mission in the summer of 2024,” Col. Douglas Pentecost, SSC’s deputy program executive officer for assured access to space, wrote in an email through SSC’s press office. “The government team works closely with ULA to ensure success in their certification process. In the event of launch vehicle readiness issues, the government will assess impacts to the manifest and determine a way ahead.”
Asked whether the Phase 2 contract’s stipulation that rockets be certified by the end of this year would mean that ULA Vulcan launches would convert automatically to SpaceX Falcon 9 launches, should Vulcan’s Centaur V not be certified this year, Pentecost said that conversion would not happen.
“ULA launches are not automatically assigned to SpaceX if Vulcan is not certified by the end of 2023,” per Pentecost’s email. “In the event of schedule delays, the government will assess the situation and determine a path forward with the Launch Service Provider. The Phase 2 contract includes mechanisms used to deal with schedule delays caused by either the contractor or the government. Additionally, the government assesses Launch Service Provider readiness to meet projected future launch dates prior to ordering additional missions.”
In August 2020, ULA and SpaceX beat out Northrop Grumman [NOC] and Blue Origin for the second phase of NSSL in a Space Force contract in partnership with the National Reconnaissance Office (Defense Daily, August 7, 2020). ULA received $337 million for two classified launches slated for last year–USSF-51 and USSF-106–and SpaceX $316 million for one classified launch, USSF-67.
The USSF-106 mission is to be Vulcan’s first for NSSL–a mission that had been scheduled for April next year. ULA has requested the Atlas V “alternative launch vehicle” for the USSF-51 mission that has been slated for March next year.
Despite Blue Origin’s loss in NSSL Phase 2, the company retains a stake in NSSL, as the company’s BE-4 engine is to power ULA’s Vulcan.
ULA had targeted May 4 for Vulcan’s first launch, but the rocket’s Centaur V upper stage exploded during qualification testing in late March at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama–an event that set back the launch timeline, although ULA CEO Tory Bruno said in July that he does not expect the launch delay to affect NSSL (Defense Daily, July 13).
ULA expects to debut Vulcan commercially in the fourth quarter of this year. ULA’s first commercial customers for Vulcan are Astrobotic Technology, Inc.‘s lunar lander, and two demonstration satellites for Amazon’s [AMZN] Kuiper constellation.