In a press conference today leading up to the maiden launch of the ULA Vulcan in the early hours of Monday morning, ULA Vice President of Government and Commercial Programs Gary Wentz stated that the vast majority of the new rocket is either flight-proven or a variant of flight-proven hardware. He said that “the only hardware that hasn’t flown prior to this flight is the BE-4 engine. All the other or variants thereof have flown on Atlas or Delta flights, missions for other customers.”
Important Context
It’s essential to view Wentz’s comment in its entirety to get the full meaning of what he said:
“[…] From a United Launch Alliance perspective, we’re building on more than 120 years of combined Atlas and Delta experience.
“As we brought Vulcan on board and designed the systems, we leveraged existing systems much as possible from Atlas and Delta, in many cases so for instance like the on the solid motors, those are a variant from the GEM-63 we fly on Atlas today and so it gave us much more confidence in our ability to fly that.
“When you look, Tory’s put out an infographic out when you look the only hardware that hasn’t flown prior to this flight is the BE-4 engine. All the other or variants thereof have flown on Atlas or Delta flights, missions for other customers. That gave us confidence to be able to offer this to support NASA and Astrobiotics missions, again, leveraging heritage and we appreciate their confidence in our ability to deliver.”
NASA Lunar Delivery Readiness on Peregrine Mission One (Jan. 05, 2024)
Here is the infographic that he was referencing:
“Tory” is ULA CEO Tory Bruno. The chart shows the various Vulcan systems that ULA has experience using in previous flights of their Atlas and Delta rockets. For example, the Rocketdyne RL10 engine has flown 142 missions for the company, and the Dual RL10 3+.
As Wentz also says, that gives the company great confidence in Vulcan performing as expected on its first flight.
The New Parts of Vulcan Are Big Ones
The one entirely new set of components is the business end of Vulcan: two Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines. The company began development of the BE-4 in 2011 and will use it on its own New Glenn orbital rocket, which is nearing flight readiness and, according to company officials, is slated to fly sometime this year.
Photo: Blue Origin
BE-4 is a liquid-methane fueled staged-combustion engine, and according to Blue Origin, it is “capable of producing 2,400 kN (550,000 lbf) thrust with deep throttle capability.” By comparison, the latest iteration of the SpaceX Raptor engine (Raptor 3) has produced 2.69 MN or 604,736 lbf in testing.
BE-4 has been undergoing full power testing since 2019, and has completed multiple full-duration testing firings since then.
ULA Vulcan Could Be The First American Methane-Fueled Rocket To Achieve Orbit
No American company has successfully orbited a methalox rocket, despite at least three other attempts: Relativity’s Terran 1 and SpaceX’s two Starship test flights all failed on ascent. Both did complete the initial boost phase once so far, with problems coming during the second stage flight portion of their respective missions.
ULA hopes to change that on Monday morning, with the flight being an all-up certification flight: they are carrying customer payloads successfully to their destinations in space. If this mission is a complete success, the next likely payload is Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser orbital spaceplane.
Chinese company LandSpace successfully orbited the payload with its Zuque-2 rocket in July 2023. They repeated their success on December 8 last year after successfully delivering their payload to orbit for a second time.
photo: LandSpace
On the American side, Relativity and SpaceX attempts were test flights, with no customer payloads aboard. SpaceX uses an iterative development approach with rapid testing, and it appears the company is racing toward readiness for a third Starship Heavy test flight. Relativity has shelved further Terran-1 work to develop a larger rocket, the Terran R.
Photo: Richard Gallagher, FMN
This gives the ULA Vulcan its chance to win America’s Cup in the so-called “Methalox Race.” Should Monday’s launch be delayed, backup opportunities with limited launch windows are available in the early hours of Tuesday through Thursday. If Vulcan does not launch by January 11, the 23rd is the next available opportunity.
