United Launch Alliance returned to the launch pad at Space Launch Complex 41 with its Vulcan rocket ahead of the vehicle's second launch. ULA needs to successfully conduct this second certification mission before it can begin launching national security payloads for the U.S. Space Force and National Reconnaissance Office.
The mission called Cert-2 is targeted for liftoff on Friday, October 4, during a three-hour launch period beginning at 6 a.m. EDT (1000 UTC). ULA completed stacking the rocket on Sunday, September 21.
After a period of bad weather caused by Hurricane Helene, Monday turned out to be a sunny, albeit hot and humid day on Florida's Space Coast as the rocket emerged from the Vertical Integration Facility to begin the 550-meter (0 .34 miles) to the launch pad. The vehicle's first movement was recorded at 10:27 a.m. EDT (1427 UTC) and the rocket reached its final destination, known as a “hard descent,” about an hour later.
After Monday morning's launch, the 202-foot (61.6 m) tall rocket will undergo a tank test on Tuesday, called a wet dress rehearsal. When fully fueled, this variant of the Vulcan rocket, designation VC2S, weighs approximately 1.5 million pounds (663,000 kg).
A static fire test of the two BE-4 engines at the base of the rocket before launch is not planned.
The mission will carry an inert payload, meaning nothing is designed to separate from the rocket's Centaur 5 upper stage following deployment of the payload fairings. During a conference call with members of the press in June, ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno mentioned that the Cert-2 flight will include some experiments and technology demonstrations “that are relevant to the development of technology for future insertion into our Centaur 5” upper stage.
“We will do some maneuvers with the upper stage just to fully characterize the limits of what Centaur 5 can do. We will measure how it behaves in relation to its cryogenics,” Bruno said during the June 26 conference call. “Obviously, it's a very long-duration upper stage that's required for these high-energy, direct-injection orbits, so it lasts a long time. But as you know, as you can imagine, we never planned a mission and we didn't design it until the last minute to know when we would run out of propellant or when boiling would consume an acceptable amount of propellant. We have some margins and hiccups from that, but this is an opportunity for us to get really more direct measurements of how that boiling behavior occurs. So we'll measure it along with these maneuvers.
“We will also have experiments attached to this inert payload that will help us understand how to extend the duration of the upper stage and what the practical limits for that might be in the future.”
Since then, Bruno and ULA have remained fairly tight-lipped about the details of those technical demonstrations and experiments. In a tongue-in-cheek response on social media to a question about the Cert-2 payload, Bruno simply said: “Highly proprietary secret sauce. It will be a while before we share more.”
ULA made the determination not to carry a customer payload aboard the rocket after Sierra Space informed them that its Dream Chaser spaceplane would not be ready for its planned launch to the International Space Station.
Like Northrop Grumman and SpaceX, Sierra Space is also part of the Commercial Resupply Service 2 (CRS-2) contract with NASA. In a 2016 press release, Sierra Space said that “Dream Chaser will provide a minimum of six cargo delivery missions to and from the ISS between 2019 and 2024.”
On September 27, Sierra Space said it completed a test to verify that its Passive Common Docking Mechanism (PCBM) met NASA standards to enable safe docking with the ISS. Earlier this month, it said its Shooting Star payload module had finished its acoustic tests.
“Our innovative Shooting Star payload module offers the ability to deliver additional capacity, flexibility and power to a wide range of missions,” Sierra Space CEO Tom Vice said in a statement. “On our first mission, Shooting Star will transport critical science, food and cargo to the International Space Station for NASA, and our cargo modules will continue to play an integral role in transporting supplies to space as we build an economy in Earth orbit. down through trade. space flight”.
The four-day test campaign was designed to ensure it could “withstand the acoustic environment of a Vulcan Centaur rocket launch.”
Our team successfully completed the joint ISS test of our Passive Common Docking Mechanism (PCBM). This test verified that the PCBM meets NASA standards. It included leak testing and alignment checks, ensuring the safety of the docking interface between Dream Chaser and the ISS. pic.twitter.com/qvHCICdFT6
– Sierra Space (@SierraSpaceCo) September 27, 2024
Second round
Completing the Cert-2 mission is crucial for the ULA. Not only will it allow the company to launch national security payloads using the Vulcan rocket, but it will also strengthen its position to bid on future missions for NASA.
In a September 2024 interview with Ars Technica, Tim Dunn, senior launch director for NASA's Launch Services Program based at Kennedy Space Center, said achieving a successful flight with Cert-1 “allowed them to be in conditions to bid for our missions”. .”
“A second Cert flight that will then demonstrate some other capabilities of the rocket will allow for more data for our certification team who are working closely with the U.S. Space Force certification team,” Dunn told Stephen Clark of Ars. “We're doing a lot of shared intergovernmental collaboration on certification work, which allows us all to have more data and more confidence in that launch vehicle to meet all the needs that we think we'll have in the next decade.”
However, a successful second flight of Vulcan does not automatically mean that ULA can move on to these important government missions. During an appearance at the Air, Space and Cyber Conference earlier this month, Space News reported that Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, who serves as executive director of the U.S. Space Force's Assured Access to Space program, said “it's not instantaneous that if they have a clean flight, they automatically get certified.”
“We'll have to review a lot of data after that just to make sure everything worked as expected. We will need some time afterwards to make sure everything is clean,” Panzenhagen said. “We're definitely looking forward to having them fully certified, so we can begin those national security space launches.”
During his remarks in June, Bruno said they intended to launch USSF-106 and USSF-87 before the end of the calendar year. The two Vulcan rockets that will be used to support this mission were delivered to the Cape earlier this year before ULA sent its Rocketship barge to perform some dry dock work.
While awaiting these future launches, ULA also continues to work on its second VIF located at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, as well as the launch infrastructure at Space Launch Complex 3 (SLC-3) located at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Vandenberg Space Force. Bruno said on social media that both assets will come into play in 2025.
Assembly of a new swing arm on top of the umbilical tower in SLC-3. The upper swingarm will serve the Centaur V's hydrogen breather, while the lower swingarm will house the engine cooling and hazardous gas lines, as well as supplying hydrogen and LOX to the Centaur V.
#vulcanrocket . pic.twitter.com/PEJFkE0cjP-Tory Bruno (@torybruno) September 28, 2024
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