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 general.
The 2 stage automobile is scheduled to launch from House Launch Complicated 41 (SLC-41) at Cape Canaveral House Power Station on Aug. 12, 2025 carrying the NTS-3 (Navigation Know-how Satellite tv for pc 3) know-how demonstrator for the U.S. Air Power Analysis Laboratory (AFRL) to geosynchronous orbit. The rocket will even carry an unspecified categorized payload on behalf of the U.S. House Power (USSF).
Delayed a number of instances 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 strong 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 in the course of the launch of ULA’s Vulcan CERT-2 mission this morning, with what gave the impression 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 finally granted in March 2025. This certification requires launch automobiles to reveal excessive ranges of reliability and redundancy so as to defend priceless army and authorities payloads from being misplaced in rocket failures as a lot as moderately potential.
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 last mission in April 2024, whereas Atlas V has quite a few launches remaining earlier than retirement. The arrival of less expensive, heavy launch automobiles like SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy noticed the Delta IV grow to be unattractive from a value perspective, whereas the Atlas V’s use of the Russian-designed RD-180 engine is politically unsustainable.
Vulcan attaining its first profitable nationwide safety launch will finish the temporary monopoly held by SpaceX for army and authorities house launches. NSSL certification can 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 before Aug. 15. For each ULA and Blue Origin, the remaining problem can be to compete with SpaceX’s unbelievable tempo of launches – nearly 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 significant trigger for concern each inside and out of doors of the U.S. Authorities and army. Calls have been made throughout the political spectrum for the nationwide safety vital components of the corporate to be seized by the U.S. Authorities so as to defend its safety pursuits and investments. Alongside the corporate’s house launch automobiles, Starshield, a military-specific improvement of the Starlink satellite tv for pc web community, is seeing elevated use throughout the U.S. army.
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 identify stand for Vulcan Centaur – a Vulcan primary stage with a Centaur higher stage, whereas the quantity represents the variety of SRBs fitted to the primary 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 had 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 strong 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 primary 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. Quite 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 same old 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, gives round 860,000lbs of power at sea degree, which 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) Could 29, 2024
Future demand anticipated from each the New Glenn and Vulcan rockets have resulted in two distinct BE-4 manufacturing strains being established. Like SpaceX’s automobiles, New Glenn is designed to have its primary stage recovered and reused. Vulcan, nonetheless, is expendable and as such any engines utilized by the ULA automobile will at present see one use solely.
An improve is in improvement which might see the engine module separate from the stack after use and return safely to the bottom utilizing an inflatable warmth defend, permitting the BE-4 engines to be recovered, refurbished, and re-used. This could carry down particular person launch prices, which the corporate will hope will assist to draw industrial prospects 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 supposed to enhance the survivability of PNT techniques just like the U.S. International Positioning System (GPS) towards rising threats that purpose to disrupt or deny real-time PNT for personnel, automobiles, and weapon techniques.
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 12 months.
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 doubtless arouse the pursuits of business plane operators whose encounters with GPS jamming throughout Europe and the Center East lately have been broadly reported.
Fashionable developments with software program outlined radios (SDRs) will probably 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, but it surely additionally gives for the opportunity of backwards and forwards compatibility with different techniques.
Sooner or later, a widespread roll out of superior SDR know-how on board satellites might imply that extra frequent, iterative upgrades to companies beforehand rendered unimaginable by the immense value of changing complete satellite tv for pc networks are actually possible endeavors.
