ULA sets mid-November launch date for crucial Vulcan return-to-flight mission This Vulcan launch will be the first to utilize a full complement of six solid rocket boosters. Technicians at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida prepare to install one of the six solid rocket boosters for the Vulcan rocket's upcoming return-to-flight mission. Launch Alliance announced Wednesday it plans to return its Vulcan rocket to service on November 13, nine months after a solid rocket booster anomaly threw the company’s 2026 launch schedule into oblivion.
The return-to-flight mission will launch 40 satellites for the Amazon Leo broadband constellation, the first of 38 Vulcan flights Amazon has booked to deploy the bulk of its network. The mission will lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, and ULA said the launch date is pending range approval. The launch is critical for ULA after its new flagship rocket suffered nozzle failures on its solid rocket boosters on two of its first four missions, most recently during a flight in February.
In both cases, the rocket overcame the nozzle failure and completed its mission, but officials at the US Space Force, ULA’s primary customer, lost confidence in Vulcan. Space Force officials will closely scrutinize Vulcan’s return-to-flight mission. The Pentagon has entrusted ULA’s Vulcan rocket for roughly half of its major launches through the early 2030s.
The Space Force certified the Vulcan rocket for national security launches in 2025, then flew two missions on Vulcan before its grounding after the February booster incident. In a statement, United Launch Alliance said engineers “made great strides” in understanding the booster anomaly that occurred in February. Engineers “have identified several potential contributors, which have been mitigated through design and process improvements to the nozzle,” ULA said.
Investigators blamed the nozzle problem’s first occurrence in 2024 on a manufacturing defect in an insulator meant to protect the nozzle’s metallic structure from the rocket’s superheated exhaust. Neither company responded to questions from Ars on Wednesday. The Space Force is counting on United Launch Alliance, a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, to deliver into orbit a backlog of the military’s communications, navigation, missile warning, and surveillance satellites.
Amazon Leo, a potential competitor to SpaceX’s Starlink network, also has an inventory of broadband satellites in storage waiting for rides on the Vulcan rocket. United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket is fully stacked with 40 Amazon Leo satellites in its payload fairing. This version of the rocket will debut an extended fairing, bringing the rocket’s total height to 221 feet (67.4 meters).
Extract — continue reading at the source.
