The primary of a brand new technology of United Launch Alliance rockets has arrived at its Florida spaceport to arrange for a debut flight.
United Launch Alliance (ULA) engineers unloaded the primary Vulcan Centaur rocket on Sunday (Jan. 22), rolling it off the corporate’s RocketShip barge and onto dry land at Port Canaveral close to its launch website, Cape Canaveral House Power station. The brand new rocket will make its first flight within the subsequent few months, if all goes in accordance with plan, sending a personal lunar lander to the moon alongside two Amazon web satellites.
“The primary flight objects shipped embody the Vulcan booster first stage interstage adapter and Centaur V higher stage,” ULA officers wrote in an announcement. “The {hardware} was transferred from RocketShip to ULA amenities at Cape Canaveral for post-arrival inspections and the beginning of launch preparations.” The RocketShip barge delivered the Vulcan Centaur parts from ULA’s rocket manufacturing facility in Decatur, Alabama.
#VulcanRocket booster is a beaut! pic.twitter.com/YSdClYutsnJanuary 22, 2023
Vulcan Centaur is a 202-foot-tall (67 meters) booster designed to exchange ULA’s workhorse Atlas V and Delta IV rockets for industrial and authorities missions. The rocket is provided with a Centaur V higher stage and as much as six strong rocket boosters to energy its approach to space. Its first stage is powered by two BE-4 methane-liquid oxygen engines constructed by Blue Origin.
Make manner, rocket coming by way of. #VulcanRocket #CountdowntoVulcan pic.twitter.com/pVCtUHbsRGJanuary 22, 2023
“Make manner, rocket coming by way of,” ULA CEO Tory Bruno wrote on Twitter (opens in new tab) to have fun the Vulcan Centaur’s arrival. He additionally shared a time-lapse video of the booster’s parts rolling off the RocketShip barge.
“I do not find out about you guys, however I simply by no means get bored with seeing this,” he added (opens in new tab).
I don’t find out about you guys, however I simply by no means get bored with seeing this. #Rocketship. #CountdowntoVulcan pic.twitter.com/r0bL2qUghKJanuary 23, 2023
All parts of the primary #VulcanRocket have arrived at Cape Canaveral to start processing in the direction of the inaugural take a look at flight of ULA’s subsequent technology rocket within the #CountdownToVulcan. Be taught extra in our weblog!https://t.co/jeWP7VtHx4 pic.twitter.com/xg4H78Bw1sJanuary 23, 2023
With its parts in Cape Canaveral, the Vulcan Centaur rocket will bear a collection of checks and assessments, and in the end be assembled for flight at ULA’s amenities at Cape Canaveral House Power Station. Its first mission, focused for the primary quarter of this yr, will launch two prototype web satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper and the Peregrine moon lander constructed by the corporate Astrobotic.
“The Certification-1 launch will ship two Venture Kuiper demonstration satellites into low Earth orbit, place the Astrobotic Peregrine commercial lunar lander in a extremely elliptical orbit greater than 225,000 miles (360,000 km) above Earth to intercept the moon, and carry a Celestis Memorial Spaceflight Payload past the Earth-moon system to orbit the sun endlessly,” ULA officers stated.
Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander will carry 24 payloads to the moon, together with 11 for NASA as a part of the company’s Industrial Lunar Payload Companies mission.
E mail Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or observe him @tariqjmalik (opens in new tab). Comply with us @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab), Facebook (opens in new tab) and Instagram (opens in new tab).
