WASHINGTON – United Launch Alliance will fly an inert payload and instrumentation on its second Vulcan Centaur mission after concluding that Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser would not be ready in time for a launch this fall.
At a press conference on June 26, ULA CEO Tory Bruno said the upcoming Cert-2 mission, now scheduled for September, will carry an inert payload that the company originally built as a backup in case the payload for the first Vulcan launch, Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander, was delayed. It will replace the Dream Chaser, a cargo plane that would make its first flight to the International Space Station.
“We have been advised by Sierra Space that they feel they are at significant risk in terms of meeting the mid-year flight date” previously scheduled for Cert-2, he said. “They told us they will step aside to support our critical national security space missions that will take place next.”
ULA is eager to launch Cert-2 because it is the second of two launches the Space Force needs to certify the rocket to launch national security payloads. The company says it aims to launch two of these missions, dubbed USSF-106 and USSF-87, before the end of the year.
The company’s new plan calls for launching Cert-2 in September, carrying that inert payload into low Earth orbit. The payload will remain attached to the upper stage while ULA conducts “experiments and demonstrations” of technologies the company is considering integrating into the Centaur, the details of which Bruno did not reveal.
“Then we’ll do a number of post-baseline maneuvers, just to help us better understand the full capabilities of Centaur V and measure some of its properties,” he said, such as vaporizing its cryogenic propellant. The Centaur will then go to a final disposal orbit that he said meets the U.S. government’s Orbital Debris Mitigation Standard Practices.
The new plan for Cert-2 is consistent with what Pentagon officials said in May, when they privately noted that they would consider having ULA launch an inert payload if Dream Chaser was not ready to fly by the end of the year . Bruno said on the call that no other commercial payload was available to take Dream Chaser’s place and maintain a September launch.
Bruno did not estimate how long he thought the certification would take, but believed it could happen in time for ULA to conduct the two Space Force missions before the end of the year. That’s because the Space Force has had time to review data from January’s Cert-1 launch and preparations have been made ahead of Cert-2.
“It’s kind of prepped and ready to go,” he said of the certification paperwork. ULA will provide data and analytics from Cert-2 to the Space Force so it can quickly compare actual performance to expected performance. “It will turn around quite quickly, well in time to fly twice more this year.”
Hardware for both the Cert-2 launch and the two Space Force missions that follow are ready or nearing completion. ULA delivered the Vulcan for Cert-2 to Cape Canaveral on the company’s Rocketship boat, which arrived on June 23. The next two will arrive at the Cape in August and “right after,” Bruno said.
He added that ULA has received all the BE-4 engines from Blue Origin it needs for the Vulcans it plans to launch this year. “Blue used to be the long stick because it took them just a little bit longer to get this new methane-based, very large rocket engine through development, but the time has come and they are now ramping up their factory,” he said. .
That included, he said, personal assurances from Blue Origin general manager Dave Limp that the company will be able to meet ULA’s needs for BE-4 engines while simultaneously building a version of the engine for its own New Glenn rocket. “I have much more confidence in Blue’s ability to meet our needs,” he said, compared to “many months or a year ago.”
ULA’s decision will postpone Dream Chaser indefinitely. Sierra Space delivered the first Dream Chaser vehicle, named Tenacity, to the Kennedy Space Center in May for final testing and work on the thermal protection system. The vehicle arrived at KSC from NASA’s Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Ohio after a series of shock, vibration and thermal vacuum tests there.
“As a first in defense technology, we understand how important ULA’s Cert-2 mission is to our launch partner’s national security criticality and schedule. We are working closely with ULA to identify the next available launch date,” Sierra Space said in a statement to SpaceNews. It added that the company was making “excellent progress” on the vehicle, which is “on track to begin flying by the end of 2024.”
However, launch manifests could push the mission well into 2025. With Vulcan having booked two national security missions by the end of the year, the next Vulcan launch is scheduled for late in the first quarter of 2025, although Bruno did not reveal the payload for the mission. that mission.
ULA, which has conducted three launches so far this year, expects 20 launches in 2025, combining Atlas and Vulcan vehicles. All Atlases will be ready by the end of the year, while the Vulcans will be “at the forefront” of missions planned next year, Bruno said. “All I need, knock on wood, is for the spacecraft to show up on time.”