Vulcan Centaur's Cert-2 Flight Nearing “Final Countdown”

We haven't had much news from United Launch Alliance (ULA) about the upcoming Certification-2 flight for their Vulcan rocket since late June when we learned that they were planning to do the flight without a functional payload. 

Today, SpaceNews posted an update with some input from the US Space Force saying (my words) they'd like it better if ULA were flying a functional payload, (that presumably could relay some data used to evaluate the booster performance) so that a successful launch will not immediately guarantee certification. 

“I’m definitely looking forward to that second certification flight. But it’s not instantaneous that if they have a clean flight, they’re automatically certified,” Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, the U.S. Space Force’s program executive officer for assured access to space, said Sept. 18 at the Air Space & Cyber Conference.

The Cert-2 flight is currently showing on NextSpaceflight.com as October 4 at 0600AM EDT or 1000 UTC. As has been discussed before, this was to have been the second of the typical two certification flights required, and had long been set to be Sierra Space's Dream Chaser smaller version of something like the space shuttles (in that it will land on a runway) but not man rated, just intended to carry cargo. After what appeared to be a successful test campaign lasting months at NASA's Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky, Ohio, I had been expecting Dream Chaser to be ready for an early fall launch. That June post (first link at the top) was when Sierra said "uncle" - there was too much to get done to make a launch now. In its place, Vulcan will launch an inert payload - dead weight.

A complication is that Vulcan itself is late. Late enough for fires to be getting started under the ULA executives.

In 2020, the Space Force selected ULA and SpaceX as its two primary launch providers under the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 2 program, a five-year contract. However, Vulcan has yet to perform any national security missions due to certification delays, partly driven by engine development issues and a March 2023 explosion during testing of the Centaur upper stage.

The Pentagon, meanwhile, has grown increasingly concerned about ULA’s ability to meet its commitments under the NSSL contract. Panzenhagen noted that the Cert-1 mission was a success: “What we saw on the first certification flight for Vulcan was a very clean flight. The rocket performed really well.”
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Even if the second flight proceeds smoothly, Panzenhagen emphasized that ULA’s certification will not be immediate. “We will have a lot of data to go through after that just to make sure that everything performed up to expectations,” she said. “We will need some time after that to make sure that everything was clean.”

Despite these hurdles, she expressed optimism: “We’re definitely looking forward to having them be completely certified, so we can start those national security space launches.” ULA has set its sights on launching two national security missions, USSF-106 and USSF-87, before the end of 2024, pending certification.

NextSpaceflight shows USSF-106 as No Earlier Than (NET) "October 2024" and USSF-87  NET December.  I must be dramatically uninformed. That means they essentially have everything to build the next Vulcan for the first and I have to think most of what they need for the December launch. Considering their pace so far.  Standard Disclaimer: launching in June of 2027 (a Pulled From Air date far out in the future) technically complies with No Earlier Than October 2024.

Vulcan Cert-2 flight preparations under way at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Undated Image. Credit: ULA