Launching the Second Vulcan Rocket: Why ULA Should Act Quickly

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Overview: Vulcan takes Centaur stage

When reporting on the space industry, it can be easy to lose sight of the bigger picture and focus solely on the details. I often need to take a step back and analyze the significance of an event or announcement, as what a space company or agency considers important may not immediately resonate with CNBC's audience.

An excellent demonstration of that from this week is the United Launch Alliance's Cert-2 mission.

The announcement by ULA CEO Tory Bruno that the company will fly Cert-2 without a customer payload is a surprising revelation. With rockets being expensive and often waiting months or even years for spacecraft to be ready, it seems unusual to send a $100 million empty Vulcan into orbit without any paying customers. Given that ULA has already sold more than 70 launches to customers, it raises questions about the company's business strategy and priorities.

The Pentagon is a customer of Cert-2.

The National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program offers lucrative rocket orders for national security missions, which are worth billions of dollars annually. These missions can be low-cost experimental launches or expensive, top-secret satellites that the Pentagon wants to keep under its control.

The second mission of Vulcan, named Cert-2, is aimed at certifying the rocket to fly a NSSL mission. Space Force requires that any new rocket brought to market by ULA and SpaceX must successfully complete launches before being certified. The first launch of Cert-2 took place in January, marking the beginning of the certification process.

During a press conference on Wednesday, Bruno stated that Space Force is aiming to observe another successful flight similar to Cert-1 with Cert-2.

Assuming no surprises are found, Vulcan will be cleared to launch NSSL missions after ULA sends gigabytes of data for all instrumentation on every part of the rocket following Cert-2.

ULA had planned to fly Sierra Space's inaugural cargo Dream Chaser spaceplane on Cert-2, but Bruno stated that the CEO of the latter company, Tom Vice, felt that he was taking on too much schedule risk for his needs. As a result, Dream Chaser has been replaced with an "inert payload," or a "mass simulator," allowing Cert-2 to launch by September.

Why the rush?

The Air Force has expressed concern about the delays in the Vulcan rocket launch and imposed a financial penalty on ULA, the joint owners of the rocket company, due to these delays.

The uncertainty surrounding Blue Origin's ability to provide BE-4 engines for ULA's Vulcan missions has been largely resolved. The company recently delivered six engines to ULA for its three launches, and Bruno expressed increased confidence in their relationship. A year ago, Bruno noted that his company had significant concerns about securing the necessary engines, which stemmed from a BE-4 engine explosion during acceptance testing.

The timely delivery of BE-4 engines becomes increasingly crucial next year, as Bruno anticipates ULA to make 20 launches in 2025, with half of those on Atlas V rockets and half on Vulcan. With 16 Atlas V rockets remaining to launch, the company is transitioning to Vulcan.

ULA is willing to pay out of pocket to launch the mission because the backlog of NSSL orders is due to the Pentagon being ULA's most important customer.

The sale process of ULA is still uncertain, despite Vulcan's successful debut and Jeff Bezos' stock sales earlier this year. It is speculated that whoever wants to buy ULA may be waiting until after Cert-2 or for a more friendly FTC if there is a change in the White House in November.

What's up

According to Space Command, a Russian non-operational satellite broke apart in orbit, resulting in over 100 pieces of trackable debris. NASA issued a shelter-in-spacecraft order to astronauts on the International Space Station as a precautionary measure. The debris cloud was monitored for an hour before the station was cleared to resume normal activities. The satellites were identified as the decommissioned RESURS-P1 by Space Command and LeoLabs.
The first lunar samples returned to Earth from the moon's far side were brought back by the Chang'e 6 capsule, which landed on the moon and retrieved 2 kilograms of lunar material.
NASA has indefinitely delayed the return of the Starliner crew as the agency and company analyze and review more data about the spacecraft's performance, particularly its thruster and helium issues. NASA emphasized that Starliner is clear to return at any point in case of an emergency on the ISS.
SpaceX introduces a compact, mobile option for its satellite intern terminals with a limited initial release to U.S. customers through the launch of a backpack-sized Starlink Mini antenna.
The company, which has received $97 million for developing new spacewalking suits, is ending its role in the ISS program. – Reuters
ESA's Toni Tolker-Nielsen believes that Ariane 6 is the ideal rocket for launching satellites, while Starship is designed for human missions to the moon and Mars. Tolker-Nielsen also stated that ESA opted not to make Ariane 6 reusable due to low launch requirements, which would not be economically viable.
Firefly has announced that it will launch rockets from both NASA's Wallops launch site and the Esrange Space Center in the near future.
Rocket Lab has launched its 50th Electron mission, surpassing the milestone of being the fastest commercially developed rocket in history. Its first Electron mission took off in May 2017.
SpaceX successfully launches its 10th Falcon Heavy rocket, carrying NOAA's GOES-U satellite into geostationary orbit. This satellite is the fourth in a series of weather monitoring satellites constructed by Lockheed Martin for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. – SpaceNews
The founders' decision to take the company private has led to a lawsuit by shareholders, who claim that the deal undervalues the company and shortchanges public investors.
NASA collaborates with other federal agencies in a planetary defense exercise, simulating a hypothetical scenario where an asteroid has a high probability of striking Earth and how the U.S. would respond.
Astrobotic constructed a "terrestrial moonscape" at its Mojave, California facility for testing landers and rovers, which it named the "Lunar Surface Proving Ground."
NASA is exploring the possibility of constructing habitats using fungi through a concept award in California, with the aim of developing new multi-purpose materials for building structures on other planets.

Industry maneuvers

According to Bloomberg, SpaceX's valuation is reportedly $210 billion as the company prepares to make a secondary sale offer via insiders at a price of $112 a share.
NASA awards $843 million contract to SpaceX for building U.S. Deorbit Vehicle to guide ISS back into Earth's atmosphere in 2030.
The Canadian Space Agency awarded MDA $730 million ($1 billion CAD) for the Canadarm3 contract, which will be used on the lunar Gateway space station.
PLD Space is investing $10.7 million (€10 million) at the Guiana Space Center in Kourou for the launch of MIURA 5.
Comcast, a U.S. telecom giant, has signed a business enterprise connectivity deal with Starlink, marking the first major network provider to work with SpaceX's satellite internet service. Financial terms and service timing were not disclosed.
Intelsat has signed for the Starfish Space satellite servicing mission, which will commence in 2026 and involve the Otter spacecraft of the startup company docking with and maneuvering a retired Intelsat satellite in geostationary graveyard orbit.
KVH has signed a bulk deal with Starlink, prepaying for data in an expansion of a previous agreement, and also has a deal for Eutelsat Oneweb capacity.
LiveEO, a German startup, has secured $27 million (€25 million) in funding led by NordicNinja and DeepTech & Climate Fonds (DTCF) to expand its satellite imagery analysis platform.

Market movers

Planet, a satellite imagery and data company, has announced that it will lay off approximately 180 employees, which represents about 17% of its workforce. This is the company's second round of layoffs in less than a year. Despite the headcount reduction, Planet stated that it will stick to its previous financial guidance.
Airbus suffered a $1 billion loss from its satellite projects in the first half of the year, although the company did not specify which of its telecommunications, navigation, or observation satellite programs were impacted. – Via Satellite

Boldly going

CJ Sturckow is taking over as Chief Pilot at Virgin Galactic, replacing Dave Mackay who has been with the company for 19 years. Sturckow previously worked at NASA before joining Virgin Galactic in 2013.
Chris Sambar has joined the board of directors, replacing Alex Coleman, the AT&T Head of Network, who previously held the seat. Additionally, three AST executives have been added to their existing roles, with Scott Wisniewski named President and Chief Strategy Officer, Shanti Gupta taking on the role of Chief Operations Officer, and Andrew Johnson becoming Chief Financial Officer.