United Launch Alliance (ULA)

[Orionid]

ULA to debut unflown variant of Atlas 5 rocket later this year
February 11, 2020 Stephen Clark


The Atlas 5-511 vehicle is the last of 11 versions of United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket to have never flown. That will change in late 2020. Credit: United Launch Alliance

The last unflown variant of United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 launcher — fitted with a five-meter fairing and a single strap-on solid rocket booster — will carry a pair of U.S. military space surveillance satellites toward geosynchronous orbit from Cape Canaveral late this year, according to a Space Force spokesperson.

Atlas 5 rockets have flown 82 missions since August 2002, but none have launched in the Atlas 5’s “511” configuration with a 5.4-meter-diameter (17.7-foot) payload fairing and a single solid-fueled motor providing an additional boost during the first 90 seconds of flight.

That will change with the launch of the next pair of satellites for the Space Force’s Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program. Built by Northrop Grumman, the satellites are designed to help the military track and observe objects in geosynchronous orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator.

The GSSAP 5 and 6 satellites launching on the Atlas 5-511 rocket will join four others deployed by two Delta 4 rockets in 2014 and 2016.

The Atlas 5-511 rocket will take off with 1.2 million pounds of thrust from the single solid-fueled booster and the first stage’s kerosene-fueled RD-180 main engine. According to ULA, the Atlas 5-511 can carry up to 11,570 pounds (5,250 kilograms) to an elliptical geostationary transfer orbit. Its capacity to low Earth orbit is roughly 24,250 pounds (11,000 kilograms), according to ULA performance data.

The Atlas 5 rocket was designed by Lockheed Martin to fly in up to 20 different configurations, giving engineers the ability to “dial” the rocket’s power and payload volume to meet the needs of each specific mission. Mission planners have the option of flying a four-meter or five-meter diameter payload fairing, and can fly the Atlas 5 with up to five strap-on solid boosters, or none if the mission doesn’t need them.

The Atlas 5’s Centaur upper stage can fly with one or two RL10 engines, depending on mission requirements. So far, all but one Atlas 5 launch has flown with the single-engine Centaur upper stage.

The exception is on launches with Boeing’s Starliner capsule, which launches with a dual-engine Centaur stage. There are no other missions on the Atlas 5 launch schedule using the dual-engine Centaur stage.

The addition of the unique Atlas 5 configuration for Starliner missions and the lack of use of other dual-engine Centaur variants effective leaves 11 Atlas 5 versions that will have flown at least once before the rocket’s retirement in the coming years. ULA is developing the upgraded Vulcan Centaur rocket to replace the Atlas and Delta rocket families.

The most-used version of the Atlas 5 to date is the “401” variant with a four-meter fairing and no solid boosters. The Atlas 5-401 has flown 38 times, including the first Atlas flight in 2002.

Lockheed Martin merged its Atlas rocket program with Boeing’s Delta family in 2006 to create United Launch Alliance.

ULA has around around Atlas 5 missions planned this year — all from Cape Canaveral — including the successful launch of the Solar Orbiter mission Sunday night for the European Space Agency and NASA.

Solar Orbiter used the “411” variant of the Atlas 5 rocket with a four-meter (13.1-foot) payload shroud and a single strap-on solid-fueled booster. The Atlas 5-411 configuration has launched six times to date.

With asymmetrical thrust countered by steering from the Atlas 5’s RD-180 main engine, the Atlas 5-511 and -411 configurations are unique among launchers currently in service. The ability to add a single booster allows customers to pay for just enough capacity for their payloads, rather than buying a more larger, more expensive Atlas 5 variant.

Other Atlas 5 flights scheduled in 2020 include the launch of the Space Force’s sixth Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications satellite on the most powerful Atlas 5 version — the 551 with a five-meter fairing and five boosters — no earlier than March 13. A flight with the Space Force’s X-37B spaceplane is scheduled for May using an Atlas 5-501 with a five-meter fairing and no strap-on motors

The launch of NASA’s Mars 2020 rover is planned in July on an Atlas 5-541 with a five-meter fairing and four solid rocket boosters.

Later this year, a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office — the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency — will lift off on an Atlas 5-531 rocket with a five-meter fairing and three solid-fueled augmentation motors in the August or September timeframe. That mission is designated NROL-101.

Then an Atlas 5 rocket will launch the GSSAP 5 and 6 satellites in the fourth quarter of 2020 — between the beginning of October and the end of December — on a mission designated AFSPC-8.

Atlas 5 rocket hardware for the first piloted test flight of Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule is also in storage at Cape Canaveral for a possible launch some time this year. But Boeing and NASA are investigating software errors that plagued the Starliner’s first unpiloted orbital test flight in December, and officials have not decided whether Boeing must perform another demonstration flight without astronauts before proceeding with a crewed launch.

Starliner missions fly on a special variant of the Atlas 5 without a payload shroud. Two solid rocket boosters are mounted on the first stage to give the Starliner and extra boost into space, and the Atlas 5’s Centaur upper stage is fitted with two RL10 engines instead of one.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/02/11/ula-to-debut-unflown-variant-of-atlas-5-rocket-later-this-year/

https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau/atlas-5.htm
https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau_det/atlas-5-511.htm

[wini]

Jeżeli ktoś jest ciekawy jak są produkowane Atlasy V i jak będzie produkowany Vulcan i ogólnie chciałby zobaczyć jak wygląda fabryka rakiet to musi to zobaczyć:

[Orionid]

Marty Malinowski: główny inżynier floty rakietowej Atlas

RocketStars: Atlas chief engineer with the familiar voice
May 10, 2020, 07:11 AM



From an auto mechanic to the chief engineer of the Atlas rocket fleet, Marty Malinowski has always been intrigued with what makes things tick.

Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, Malinowski was interested in all things mechanical. And cars fascinated him in particular.

"I would memorized the smallest details on the new cars of my time and played a game with a friend to see who could correctly identify the make, model and year of a car at night just by looking at the taillights of the car as it drove down the street," Malinowski said. (...)
https://www.ulalaunch.com/explore/blog-detail/blog/2020/05/10/rocketstars-atlas-chief-engineer-with-the-familiar-voice

[Orionid]

Plany ULA na 2021. Też o ostatnich problemach ze startem NROL-44

ULA’s new rocket Vulcan projected to launch in late 2021
by Sandra Erwin — December 17, 2020
(...)

Of the 10 launches,

four are national security satellites,
three are NASA missions, and other
three are commercial —
   one is Astrobotic’s lunar lander and the other
   two are Boeing Starliner commercial crew capsule launches to the International Space Station.

One of the four national security launches will be a National Reconnaissance Office mission on a Delta 4 Heavy rocket, an aging vehicle that has to fly four more times before it’s retired. ULA last week launched NROL-44 on a Delta 4 Heavy following three months of delays and scrubs. including a pair of last-minute aborts and other delays caused by problems with the launch pad equipment.

Bruno said the problems were caused by aging equipment and difficulties operating  launch pads that are rarely used.

Of the four remaining NRO missions on Delta 4 Heavy, two will fly from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and two from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

Bruno said ULA is taking action to avoid the problems experienced with NROL-44.

“We’re going through all the pads and preemptively replacing items,” he said. “We’ll activate the pads periodically and test them and activate them whether there’s a mission or not,” Bruno said. “I don’t expect to have issues like we had with NROL-44 ever again.”
https://spacenews.com/ulas-new-rocket-vulcan-projected-to-launch-in-late-2021/

[Orionid]

Na start oczekują jeszcze 4 loty RN Delta 4 Heavy, po czym po 19 latach od pierwszego lotu ma zostać wycofana z eksploatacji.

2021 (13)   NROL-82   NRO   Vandenberg, SLC-6
2022 (14)   NROL-91   NRO   Vandenberg, SLC-6
2022 (15)   NROL-68   NRO   Cape Canaveral, SLC-37B
2023 (16)   NROL-70   NRO   Cape Canaveral, SLC-37B

ULA to launch Delta 4 Heavy for its 12th mission, four more to go before rocket is retired
by Sandra Erwin — August 24, 2020
UPDATE: Aug. 27 launch scrubbed, new launch time Aug. 28 at 2:06 a.m.


United Launch Alliance is preparing ot launch a Delta 4 Heavy rocket on Aug. 26 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. Credit: ULA

NROL-44 is the first of the final five missions to be flown by Delta 4 Heavy between now and 2024

WASHINGTON — A Delta 4 Heavy rocket is scheduled to launch a classified mission for the National Reconnaissance Office Aug. 27 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

NROL-44 will be the 41st launch of United Launch Alliance’s Delta 4 rocket, and the 12th in the heavy configuration. ULA said Aug. 24 that the vehicle passed a launch readiness review. The launch was originally scheduled for 2:16 a.m. Aug. 26 but ULA on Monday evening said the launch is being delayed to 2:12 a.m. Aug. 27 “due to customer request.”

NROL-44 is the first of the final five missions to be flown by the Delta 4 Heavy between now and 2024 when ULA intends to retire the three-core rocket.

The next four missions are NROL-82, NROL-91, NROL-68 and NROL-70.

NROL-82 is planned to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, later this year.

NRO heavy missions are schoolbus-size satellites and are considered the most complex and expensive missions flown by the U.S. government.

ULA received contracts in 2017 to launch NROL-44 and NROL-82. In 2018 it was awarded NROL-91, NROL-68 and NROL-70 — projected to launch in fiscal years 2022 2023 and 2024.

The Air Force and the NRO paid ULA about $2.2 billion for final five Delta 4 Heavy missions. The Air Force announced in September it had negotiated the closeout Delta 4 Heavy contracts and that the vehicle would be retired in fiscal year 2024.

The final five launches were sole-sourced to ULA, the Air Force said, because the Delta 4 Heavy was the only rocket that could meet the NRO’s payload compatibility requirements, and ULA the only provider that could satisfy the agency’s demands for satellite handling.

The NRO heavy missions (known as Category C) beyond 2024 will be competed between ULA and SpaceX which were selected as the two providers for the National Security Space Launch Phase 2 procurement. ULA is developing the Vulcan Centaur to replace the Atlas 5 and the Delta 4. SpaceX will fly the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy.

The Air Force said that by the time the Delta 4 Heavy is taken out of service, both ULA and SpaceX are expected to be ready to compete for the Category C contracts.

The Phase 2 launch services procurement was intended to introduce competition into the launch market and bring costs down. At more than $400 million each, the Delta 4 Heavy missions are the most expensive.

The Air Force on Aug. 7 announced the first Phase 2 awards to SpaceX and ULA for three NRO missions. ULA received a $337 million contract for two launches and SpaceX a $316 million contract for one launch.

The Air Force has not explained why the SpaceX launch awarded Aug. 7 costs far more than the ULA launches. The contracts cover additional costs beyond the actual launch service price. The prices that ULA and SpaceX bid for the Phase 2 missions are proprietary.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk in 2018 tweeted: “A fully expendable Falcon Heavy, which far exceeds the performance of a Delta IV Heavy, is $150M, compared to over $400M for Delta IV Heavy.”

Industry experts have speculated that the large price tag includes one-time costs for vehicle and infrastructure upgrades.

“We don’t yet know enough about the award to know what factored into SpaceX’s pricing for that mission,” said defense budget analyst Todd Harrison, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“It could be that some of the one-time development costs associated with meeting some of DoD’s unique launch requirements — like vertical payload integration — are included in the cost of that first launch,” Harrison told SpaceNews.
https://spacenews.com/ula-to-launch-delta-4-heavy-for-its-12th-mission-four-more-to-go-before-rocket-is-retired/

[Tantal]

Bojlery wybuchają, Jeff Bezos wypuszcza pierwszy demostrator New Glenna z hangaru, to i ULA musiało coś zaproponować.
Pierwsze prototypy boosterów dla Vulcana dojechały barką na testy.
https://twitter.com/spacecoast_stve/status/1360597566409310208

Edit: w tym dwa silniki BE-4 od BO
https://twitter.com/julia_bergeron/status/1360608937456922635/photo/1

[maackn]

My tu gadu-gadu o SX a Delta IV Heavy NROL-82 zaraz leci.

[Orionid]

ULA zapowiada obowiązkowe szczepienia pracowników przeciwko Covid-19 od 1 września

Rocket builder ULA will require employees receive Covid vaccines beginning Sept. 1
PUBLISHED THU, AUG 19 20219:02 AM EDT Michael Sheetz

Bruno noted that ULA employees who have not yet received the full Covid vaccine will be required to receive a first dose by Sept. 30 and the last dose by Oct. 31. He also noted that ULA's requirement "is subject to bargaining with our unions," which the company will meet with to reach bargaining agreements.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/19/united-launch-alliance-requiring-covid-19-vaccines-sept-1.html

[Orionid]

ULA zapowiada definitywne zakończenie używanie Atlasów do połowy lat 20.
Planowanych jest jeszcze 29 startów.

ULA stops selling its centerpiece Atlas V, setting path for the rocket’s retirement
By Joey Roulette  Aug 26, 2021, 3:30pm EDT

The Boeing-Lockheed joint venture will retire its stalwart rocket after 29 more missions

“We’re done. They’re all sold,” CEO Tory Bruno said of ULA’s Atlas V rockets in an interview. ULA, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, has 29 Atlas V missions left before it retires sometime in the mid-2020s and transitions to its upcoming Vulcan rocket, Bruno said. The remaining Atlas V missions include a mix of undisclosed commercial customers and some for the Space Force, NASA, and Amazon’s budding broadband satellite constellation, Project Kuiper.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/26/22641048/ula-boeing-lockheed-end-sales-atlas-v-rocket-russia-rd180

A na Space Launch Complex (SLC)-41 trwają operacje pod nazwą  Pathfinder , mające przetestować elementy nowej  rakiety Vulcan

Vulcan Centaur: Pathfinder fueling tests planned
August 25, 2021

This week, ULA leadership and engineering teams held a test readiness review of the rocket hardware, pad systems, procedures and crew. The meeting authorized the pathfinder testing to proceed at the launch pad where three major operations are planned over the next few weeks:

- A liquid oxygen tanking test to load 808,000 pounds (366,500 kg) of liquid oxygen, chilled to -297 degrees F (-183 deg C), into the stage.

- A liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanking test to load 254,000 pounds (115,200 kg) of LNG, chilled to -260 degrees F (-162 deg C), into the stage. It will mark the first time LNG has been loaded into a space launch vehicle at Cape Canaveral.

- A comprehensive test to load both LNG and liquid oxygen into the stage following the same steps and timeline as launch day.

https://blog.ulalaunch.com/blog/vulcan-centaur-pathfinder-fueling-tests-planned
https://www.ulalaunch.com/rockets/vulcan-centaur

[Lion97]

W ULA możliwy jest strajk. Wg payscale.com średnia pensja w ULA wynosi 79 tys $, a w SpaceX 96tys $. Używając drogich jednorazowych rakiet ciężko być konkurencyjnym do firmy która po raz jedenasty używa tego samego boostera lub szósty używanej owiewki.

https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1494007183087915008

[Lion97]

ULA dostała w końcu swoje silniki, ale silniki nie są w 100% kompletne.

https://twitter.com/torybruno/status/1518965639272177665

[perian]

ULA dostała w końcu swoje silniki, ale silniki nie są w 100% kompletne.

https://twitter.com/torybruno/status/1518965639272177665

Bardzo czysta i nieskomplikowana konstrukcja. Sama dysza i komora, będzie super

[Lion97]

ULA dostała w końcu swoje silniki, ale silniki nie są w 100% kompletne.

https://twitter.com/torybruno/status/1518965639272177665

Bardzo czysta i nieskomplikowana konstrukcja. Sama dysza i komora, będzie super

Blue Origin pokazało w całości swój silnik BE-4 i piszą, że silnik wytrzymał ponad 2500 sekund testu. Oby podczas startu był taka samo niezawodny jak rosyjski RD-180 stosowany w Atlas V.

https://twitter.com/blueorigin/status/1521204209516834816

[Lion97]

Tory Bruno pochwalił się zdjęciem kompletnego silnika BE-4 do nowej rakiety Vulcan. Ciekawe czy jeszcze w tym roku odbędzie się start tej nowej rakiety. NextSpaceFlight pisze o pierwszym starcie Vulcana w październiku.

https://twitter.com/torybruno/status/1543338042739548160

[Lion97]

Jeden z silników BE-4 pomyślnie wykonał ponad 4-minutowy test. Ciekawe jak będzie z tempem produkcji u Blue Origin i ile obecnie wyprodukowano silników. SpaceX w grudniu zeszłego rozpoczął produkcje Raptora 2 i w tym miesiącu zauważano silnik o numerach R147.

https://twitter.com/torybruno/status/1575231771913994240