United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur orbital launch automobile will undertake its first Nationwide Safety House Launch (NSSL) mission subsequent week, the rocket sort’s third launch total.
The 2 stage automobile is scheduled to launch from House Launch Complicated 41 (SLC-41) at Cape Canaveral House Pressure Station on Aug. 12, 2025 carrying the NTS-3 (Navigation Know-how Satellite tv for pc 3) expertise demonstrator for the U.S. Air Pressure Analysis Laboratory (AFRL) to geosynchronous orbit. The rocket may also carry an unspecified categorized payload on behalf of the U.S. House Pressure (USSF).
Delayed a number of occasions to permit for the Vulcan Centaur rocket to enter service, the mission – designated USSF-106 – was most just lately pushed again in October 2024 following a take a look at launch that skilled a stable rocket booster (SRB) malfunction. The difficulty with the Northrop Grumman GEM-63XL booster didn’t influence the success of the flight, however did trigger an uneven discount in thrust output.
A wild anomaly occurred through the launch of ULA’s Vulcan CERT-2 mission this morning, with what seemed to be an SRB nozzle coming free mid-flight.
📸 me for @SpaceflightNow pic.twitter.com/DhADlPQ5G6
— Adam Bernstein (@ABernNYC) October 4, 2024
The October anomaly delayed the certification of the Vulcan for NSSL launches, which was solely ultimately granted in March 2025. This certification requires launch autos to exhibit excessive ranges of reliability and redundancy in an effort to defend useful navy and authorities payloads from being misplaced in rocket failures as a lot as fairly doable.
United Launch Alliance – a 50/50 three way partnership between Boeing and Lockheed Martin – has beforehand supplied their Atlas V and Delta IV rockets for NSSL launches. Delta IV flew its closing mission in April 2024, whereas Atlas V has various launches remaining earlier than retirement. The arrival of less expensive, heavy launch autos like SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy noticed the Delta IV turn out to be unattractive from a value perspective, whereas the Atlas V’s use of the Russian-designed RD-180 engine is politically unsustainable.
Vulcan reaching its first profitable nationwide safety launch will finish the temporary monopoly held by SpaceX for navy and authorities area launches. NSSL certification can also be sought by Blue Origin – based by Amazon head Jeff Bezos – for his or her New Glenn orbital rocket. The second of the 2 required certification launches for New Glenn is deliberate for no prior to Aug. 15. For each ULA and Blue Origin, the remaining problem could be to compete with SpaceX’s unbelievable tempo of launches – virtually 100 profitable Falcon 9 launches have taken place in 2025 alone.
Over-reliance on SpaceX, nonetheless headed by the controversial billionaire Elon Musk – who’s within the midst of a really public falling out with U.S. President Donald Trump – has been a serious trigger for concern each inside and out of doors of the U.S. Authorities and navy. Calls have been made throughout the political spectrum for the nationwide safety crucial components of the corporate to be seized by the U.S. Authorities in an effort to defend its safety pursuits and investments. Alongside the corporate’s area launch autos, Starshield, a military-specific growth of the Starlink satellite tv for pc web community, is seeing elevated use throughout the U.S. navy.
USSF-106 would be the inaugural flight for Vulcan’s VC4S configuration. Each earlier launches have been within the VC2S configuration. The primary two letters within the configuration title stand for Vulcan Centaur – a Vulcan fundamental stage with a Centaur higher stage, whereas the quantity represents the variety of SRBs fitted to the principle rocket physique. The final letter is both S or L, distinguishing the usual 15.5 metre payload fairing from the bigger 21.3 metre payload fairing. Vulcan Centaur is ready to be configured with 0, 2, 4, or 6 SRBs, with no odd-number uneven SRB configurations which have been sometimes seen on Atlas V.
Atlas V does a power-slide!The distinctive configuration and capabilities of the Atlas V’s RD-180 engine allow it to deal with excessive uneven thrust from a single GEM-63 stable rocket booster. @torybruno #USSF8 #ULA #AtlasV📷for @NSS pic.twitter.com/DifxRyXvHI
— Sean Cannon (@planetdeimos) January 21, 2022
Rocket Engines
Vulcan Centaur replaces the RD-180 fundamental stage engine from the Atlas V with two Blue Origin BE-4 liquid fueled engines. These engines are additionally used for Blue Origin’s personal New Glenn, although Vulcan had the honour of being the automobile used for his or her very first flight in January 2024. Slightly than the kerosene primarily based RP-1 gas utilized by the RD-180, BE-4 makes use of a liquid methane gas mixed with the standard liquid oxygen oxidizer.
Every engine delivers 550,000 lbs of propulsive power at sea degree. The RD-180, which is a twin-nozzle design with two combustion chambers sharing a single gas turbopump system, offers round 860,000lbs of power at sea degree, that means a comparable configuration of two BE-4s exceeds the RD-180’s efficiency.
I spy a pair of BE4 engines about to go onto their booster for USSF106, #VulcanRocket ‘s first Nationwide Safety mission. #CrowdedFactory pic.twitter.com/aU3fRciEEO
— Tory Bruno (@torybruno) Might 29, 2024
Future demand anticipated from each the New Glenn and Vulcan rockets have resulted in two distinct BE-4 manufacturing traces being established. Like SpaceX’s autos, New Glenn is designed to have its fundamental stage recovered and reused. Vulcan, nevertheless, is expendable and as such any engines utilized by the ULA automobile will at present see one use solely.
An improve is in growth which might see the engine module separate from the stack after use and return safely to the bottom utilizing an inflatable warmth protect, permitting the BE-4 engines to be recovered, refurbished, and re-used. This might deliver down particular person launch prices, which the corporate will hope will assist to draw business clients at present enticed by the Falcon 9’s remarkably cost-effective providing.
The Centaur V higher stage, in the meantime, is successfully a tried and examined design, having been developed from the Centaur III used on Atlas V. New variants of the liquid hydrogen fueled RL10 engines present further thrust efficiency and effectivity.
NTS-3 Satellite tv for pc
Developed by L3Harris, NTS-3 is described as the primary experimental positional, navigation, and timing (PNT) satellite tv for pc fielded by the U.S. in over 50 years. The satellite tv for pc will trial new applied sciences meant to enhance the survivability of PNT programs just like the U.S. World Positioning System (GPS) towards rising threats that purpose to disrupt or deny real-time PNT for personnel, autos, and weapon programs.
Working at a near-geosynchronous orbit, NTS-3 will use a phased array antenna to electronically steer and goal transmitted alerts to particular areas of the Earth. The operational interval is anticipated to final for one yr.
A part of NTS-3’s exams will contain the trialing of a PNT sign authentication protocol named CHIMERA. CHIMERA makes an attempt to mitigate the specter of PNT knowledge spoofing by establishing a safe, encrypted handshake process between the satellite tv for pc and the receiving system which verifies the sign’s authenticity. Such a measure, as soon as totally developed, would seemingly arouse the pursuits of business plane operators whose encounters with GPS jamming throughout Europe and the Center East in recent times have been broadly reported.
Trendy developments with software program outlined radios (SDRs) can be leveraged to permit the satellite tv for pc’s transmission parameters to be modified quickly whereas on-orbit. Not solely would this allow the real-time mitigation of jamming and spoofing assaults by merely switching to new frequencies, nevertheless it additionally offers for the opportunity of backwards and forwards compatibility with different programs.
Sooner or later, a widespread roll out of superior SDR expertise on board satellites may imply that extra frequent, iterative upgrades to providers beforehand rendered inconceivable by the immense price of changing whole satellite tv for pc networks are actually possible endeavors.
