After years of delays, United Launch Alliance is set to launch its first military mission on the new heavy-lift Vulcan rocket next week.
The mission, USSF-106, will send into geostationary-Earth orbit the Navigation Technology Satellite-3, or NTS-3, an experimental navigation satellite built by L3Harris and funded by the Air Force Research Laboratory.
The company, which is moving its heavy-lift work to the Vulcan rocket, was supposed to launch four Space Force missions last year. That number was pared to two and pushed to 2025, in part due to delays with certifying the rocket after its second flight in October. During that flight, material broke off one of the solid rocket boosters. Vulcan achieved certification in March, joining SpaceX as a provider for the Space Force’s National Security Space Launch program.
The cause of the booster problem has been addressed and corrective actions are in place, but it did set the company back, ULA CEO Tory Bruno told reporters Thursday.
The company now expects to fly nine times this year with a combination of new Vulcan and remaining Atlas rockets, Bruno said. That’s down from the company’s target of 20 launches.
“Earlier we had expected more, but it’s a simple matter of getting started a little bit later in the year as we resolved the [solid rocket booster] and had to synchronize customer satellite deliveries and whatnot. So now it’ll be more like nine,” Bruno said.
Before the end of the year, ULA expects to reach a twice-a-month cadence, enabling the company to launch 20 to 25 times in 2026, Bruno said.
Bruno is “pretty confident” ULA will be able to reach nine launches this year, but said some things are “always out of your control.” He added that its total output this year has been hampered by how busy the Cape Canaveral range is, with more launches and military operational tests.
To support ULA’s increase in launches, the company has been building a second vertical integration facility, the VIF, to assemble the 25-story Vulcan in Florida. And on the West Coast, the company is converting SLC-3, Space Launch Complex 3 in Vandenberg AFB, from Atlas to Vulcan.
Bruno added that finding enough employees has been a bit of a “battle,” with many aerospace companies building infrastructure and competing for the same workers. But he believes ULA has “gotten over the hump.” The company is more than three-quarters done on SLC-3; he expects to have that facility certified and able to fly missions before the end of the year.
Vulcan is key to ULA’s plans to compete against Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which has dominated the launch market in recent years.
