United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket launches from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, on its second national security certification mission. (USSF)
United Launch Alliance's (ULA's) Vulcan space launch vehicle (LV) has been certified to perform national security missions, the US Space Force (USSF) and ULA announced on 26 March. The certification qualifies Vulcan as suitably reliable to bid for launches deemed critical to US national security.
The certification process took “several years”, according to a USSF statement, and included “more than 180 discrete tasks, two certification flight demonstrations, 60 payload interface requirement verifications, 18 subsystem design and test reviews, and 114 hardware and software audits, all to establish the technical baseline from which the Space Force will make future flight worthiness determinations for launch”.
“Assured access to space is a core function of the Space Force and a critical element of national security,” said Brigadier General Kristin Panzenhagen, USSF's programme executive officer for Assured Access to Space. “Vulcan certification adds launch capacity, resiliency, and flexibility needed by our nation's most critical space-based systems.”
The certification comes six months after Vulcan's second certification launch, which carried a mass simulator and “experiments and demonstrations associated with future capabilities” for the Centaur V upper stage. During that launch, one of the two GEM 63XL solid rocket boosters cracked during lift-off, causing “reduced, asymmetric thrust”, according to a social media post by ULA's president and CEO Tory Bruno, but the booster compensated for the condition and sent the payloads into their desired orbit without further incident.
With the certification in hand, Vulcan can now compete with SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, which were certified in 2015 and 2019 respectively, for upcoming national security launches.
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