Vulcan

It has been a busy year full of rocket launches, broken records, and new developments. While years past have been about the possibilities of what is to come, 2024 was about seeing those renderings come to life. Here are our top developments stories from 2024.

For ULA, 2024 was supposed to be the year of Vulcan. The year it debuted and the year it began flying national security missions. While it debuted, and flew a few times, delays to its certification have pushed that second goal to 2025.

ULA launched its Cert-2 mission on its brand new Vulcan rocket early Friday morning. While there was an obvious anomaly in one of its solid rocket motors, the company states the mission was a success. Now ULA and the Space Force will have to review flight data in order to gain certification for its lucrative National Security Space Launch missions.

It will be another quiet week with SpaceX having yet another issue with its second stage. On Friday, SpaceX hopes to return, but the more exciting mission will be Vulcan‘s second flight, also on Friday. This mission will be its second and hopefully final certification flight for NASA and the Space Force.

ULA finished assembly of its second Vulcan rocket at its Vertical Integration Facility at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station last week. The rocket is finishing up final checks before launching an important second certification mission for the U.S. Space Force.

On Saturday ULA received its second Vulcan rocket at Cape Canaveral from its factory in Alabama. This marks the start of a second launch campaign to certify the launch vehicle for national security missions. Then today, ULA announced that its next mission will fly an inert payload instead of Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser due to scheduling delays.

ULA announced last week that it will be building a second cargo ship capable of transporting its Vulcan rocket hardware from its factory in Decatur, Alabama and its launch sites on both the East and West Coasts. The press release also emphasizes the importance Amazon‘s Kuiper satellite constellation plays in Vulcan’s launch services.

At 2:18:38 A.M. ET Monday morning, ULA debuted its Vulcan rocket after years of delays and setbacks. With a highly expected successful deployment of Astrobotic‘s first Peregrine lunar lander, Vulcan kickstarts ULA’s new commercial launch future as well as NASA‘s new exploration of the Moon.

Early Monday morning ULA plans to launch its first of two certification missions for its Vulcan rocket. What does this have to do with SpaceX‘s CEO Elon Musk? Well after a prediction made over five years ago, he’s now safe from an eating your hat moment.

In a post on social media, ULA CEO Tory Bruno shared that the launch date for the company’s new rocket, Vulcan, has been delayed to NET January 8. This comes after a wet dress rehearsal that wasn’t completed in full due to ground system faults. Another dress rehearsal will be required before launch.

The historic RL10 rocket engine, built by Aerojet Rocketdyne, is getting a big upgrade after operating for almost six decades. Using additive manufacturing, Aerojet hopes to bring new life and increased production to the engine that helped humans first reach for the stars.

ULA hit another milestone in getting its first Vulcan rocket ready to launch with stacking a new Centaur V second stage on top of its booster at Cape Canaveral. This stage was rebuilt after one failed during a static fire earlier this year due to an unknown structural fault.

Early Friday morning, Astrobotic’s first lunar lander departed its offices in Pittsburgh for a drive down to Florida to be integrated onto the Atlas V for launch as soon as December. A flight the company has been waiting to do for years.

In an interview with CNBC, ULA CEO Tory Bruno said that they plan to fly its new Vulcan every other week by the second half of 2025. This is thanks to their new grasp on the commercial launch market that Vulcan is expected to be able to compete with SpaceX on.

After long delays due to engines and the rocket’s Centaur upper stage, ULA finally has given a launch date for when it thinks it can launch its new Vulcan rocket. In an interview with CNBC, ULA CEO Tory Bruno shared the date and a lot of other company updates we’ll expand upon in future articles.

Amazon is switching rockets for its inaugural Kuiper satellite launch while maintaining the same launch provider. In late September, two Kuiper test satellites are set to be launched into orbit aboard the second Atlas V launch of the year.

Wednesday evening, ULA completed a short start-up of the two Blue Origin BE-4 engines on the bottom of its Vulcan rocket at SLC-41. This was part of a final test before getting the rocket ready to fly its first mission later this year.

In case you missed it, on March 29, a test article for the United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Centaur V experienced an anomaly that resulted in a fireball. This occurring just over a month before the upper stage’s launch, then set for May 4.

Early November 10, ULA launched an Atlas V from Space Launch Complex 3 at Vandenberg Space Force Station. The mission carried JPSS-2 and an inflatable decelerator to prove the systems to and gather data on this unique type of heat shield.

When spacecraft reenter, they need a heat shield to protect them from the immense friction and heat of speeding through the atmosphere. Usually, these are rigid structures, but ULA plans to use an inflatable heat shield to protect the engines of their Vulcan rocket and recover them for reuse. They’ll be testing out that type of heat shield next month.