United Launch Alliance's (ULA) first Vulcan rocket has been assembled in Cape Canaveral, Florida, in preparation for its first flight next month. Technicians hoisted the Vulcan rocket's payload fairing onto the top of the launch vehicle Wednesday morning at United Launch Alliance's Vertical Integration Facility. Ahead of this milestone, the payload fairing arrived in the early morning from a nearby facility, where Astrobotic's lunar lander has been refueled and ready to fly to the moon.
ULA's new rocket has been transported several times between the vertical hangar and the launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Station for countdown exercises and fueling tests. But ULA only needs the first and upper stages of the Vulkan rocket to complete these tests. Wednesday's addition of the payload shroud marks the first time ULA has fully stacked the Vulkan rocket, which is about 202 feet (61.6 meters) tall and remains surrounded by scaffolding and work platforms inside its assembly building.
This brings the launch company one step closer to the first flight of the Vulcan rocket, which will replace ULA's Atlas V and Delta IV rockets. After final inspections and holiday rest, ground crews will transport the Vulkan rocket to the launch pad in preparation for liftoff at 2:18 a.m. ET (07:18 UTC) on January 8.
The launch was originally scheduled for December 24, but ULA postponed the flight to the next launch window to resolve ground system issues discovered during a recent Vulcan countdown exercise. Astrobotic's first robotic lunar lander, named the Lark-1 mission, will leave Earth and fly to the moon only a few days a month. The launch and trajectory must be timed so that the spacecraft reaches the landing site in the proper lighting conditions.
First complete stack molding
United Launch Alliance, a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, has been under pressure from rival SpaceX in the past few years. SpaceX has launched more than 90 times this year, while ULA's rockets have flown just three times as the company wraps up its Atlas V and Delta IV projects.
ULA also has a Delta IV Heavy rocket in its inventory. The rocket will be launched next year to provide classified payloads for the National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. government's spy satellite agency. There are currently 17 Atlas V rockets yet to be launched.
With the "Vulkan" rocket, ULA is preparing to increase the frequency of launches. ULA has sold 70 Vulkan rockets, more than half to commercial customers and the remainder to the U.S. military, CEO Tory Bruno said. Amazon has booked 38 Vulcan missions to deploy satellites for its Kuiper broadband network project. The Vulkan will initially be completely non-recyclable, but ULA plans to introduce engine recovery and reuse technology later this decade.
ULA's goal is to launch an average of two Vulkan rockets per month by the end of 2025. This will be another rapid launch two years after its first flight. In comparison, the Atlas V rocket and SpaceX's Falcon 9 take longer to reach four liftoffs.
The "Vulkan" rocket was originally scheduled to launch in 2019, but has been repeatedly postponed. The main reason is that Jeff Bezos's (Jeff Bezos) space company "Blue Origin" delayed the delivery of rocket engines. In May this year, the final stage of the Vulcan rocket exploded during a ground test, and ULA missed a launch opportunity.
Unlike the debut of most rockets, "Vulkan" carried a payload on its first flight. Astrobotic's unmanned Lark 1 mission will carry 20 payloads to the lunar surface, including five payloads provided to NASA through NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. This will be the first launch mission under the CLPS program, which NASA established in 2018 to purchase commercial transportation services to the moon for scientific instruments and experiments.
Last month, Astrobotic engineers completed hands-on operations on the Peregrine lander before ULA enclosed it within the Vulkan payload fairing. The Peregrine lander is approximately 6.2 feet (1.9 meters) tall. Photos released by ULA show it encapsulated in the Vulcan rocket's payload bay, with a composite fairing that dwarfs the lander.
"If you've been paying attention to the lunar landing industry, you know that landing on the lunar surface is extremely difficult," said John Thornton, CEO of Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic. "Despite this, our team has shown incredible creativity by exceeding expectations during flight reviews, spacecraft testing and major hardware integration. We are ready for launch and landing."
The "Vulkan" rocket will have a big impact on Astrobotic's lunar lander. Two methane-fueled BE-4 engines built by Jeff Bezos' space company Blue Origin will power the Vulcan rocket's core stage. A pair of strap-on solid rocket boosters produced by Northrop Grumman will provide additional power to the rocket. The Centaur upper stage will complete the deployment of the "Peregrine Falcon" lander about 40 minutes after liftoff and begin its journey.
The Peregrine lander will initially enter orbit around the moon before finally descending to the lunar surface on February 23. The target landing site is near the Gruy Tucson dome in the northern hemisphere on the near side of the moon.
Meanwhile, another commercial lunar lander preparing for launch at Cape Canaveral is also facing launch delays. The mission, managed by Intuitive Machines, will miss the mid-January launch window and is now scheduled to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in mid-February.
Intuitive Machines announced the delay on Tuesday, blaming "changes in the SpaceX launch manifest" caused by "adverse weather conditions." The change to SpaceX's launch schedule refers to delays in launches of its Falcon Heavy rocket and the U.S. military's semi-secret X-37B space plane, which was supposed to take off earlier this month but is now scheduled for no earlier than December 28.
But the delayed launch of Falcon Heavy was not due to weather. Problems with ground systems and unknown problems with the rocket itself were responsible for the delays. The Falcon Heavy rocket will lift off from the same launch pad required for the Intuitive Machinery IM-1 mission. SpaceX typically takes three weeks to reconfigure Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) between Falcon Heavy and Falcon 9 launches, leaving no time to prepare for the IM-1 launch window that opens on January 12.
The IM-1 mission had to launch from an LC-39A because SpaceX had already outfitted Intuitive Machines' Nova-C lander with cryogenic methane and liquid oxygen fuel shortly before liftoff.
Intuitive Machines said in a statement that its robotic lunar lander "remains ready" to blast off. "Since arriving in Florida, the IM-1 lunar lander has completed major system testing, validation and certification milestones and is ready for integration with SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket," the company said.