United Launch Alliance ushers in a new era of space capabilities with the successful launch of its second certification flight (Cert-2) of the next generation Vulcan rocket on Oct. 4 at 7:25 a.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

“The success of Vulcan’s second certification flight heralds a new age of forward-looking technology committed to meeting the ever-growing requirements of space launch and supporting our nation’s assured access to space. We had an observation on one of our solid rocket boosters (SRB) that we are reviewing but we are overall pleased with the rocket’s performance and had a bullseye insertion,” said Tory Bruno, ULA’s president and CEO. “Vulcan provides high performance and greater affordability while continuing to deliver our unmatched reliability and orbital precision for all our customers across the national security, civil and commercial markets.”

The Cert-2 mission carried experiments and demonstrations associated with future capabilities of Centaur V, the world’s highest-performing upper stage designed to further deliver on ULA’s unrivaled legacy of reliability and precision. Centaur V provides 2.5 times the energy and 450 times the endurance of its predecessors, enabling the most complex orbital insertions within the most challenging and clandestine orbits.

“Vulcan is built with the strength of a national workforce whose unmatched dedication and innovation has modernized the very best of our industry-leading heritage,” said Mark Peller, vice president of Vulcan Development. “The foundation of Vulcan’s purpose-built design rests on the best of what we’ve learned from more than 130 combined years of launch experience with Atlas and Delta.”

The Cert-2 mission served as the second of two certification flights required for the U.S. Space Force’s certification process and ULA has now completed all requirements for certification. ULA continues to work closely with the U.S. Space Force as they take the next few weeks to review the data and compare it to ULA’s first certification mission to ensure that the vehicle performed as expected and there are no additional items that need review. Once the evaluation is complete to the Space Force's standards, the Vulcan rocket will be certified to launch national security missions. 

“The team will continue to modify our infrastructure as we work towards an accelerated launch cadence to meet our customers’ manifest requirements while building off today’s successful launch and developing future Vulcan upgrades, including SMART reuse plans for downrange, non-propulsive recovery of Vulcan engines,” said Bruno.

ULA has sold more than 70 Vulcan launches to date, including 38 missions for Amazon’s Project Kuiper and multiple national security space launch missions as the part of the country’s Phase 2 launch procurement.

All rockets are not created equal. ULA is the nation’s most experienced, reliable and accurate launch service provider delivering unmatched value, a tireless drive to improve, and commitment to the extraordinary. Vulcan’s inaugural launch marked the beginning of a new era of space capabilities and provides higher performance and greater affordability while offering the world’s only high energy architecture rocket to deliver any payload, at any time, directly to any orbit. 

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