United Launch Alliance launches first heavy launch vehicle Vulcan Centaur
On January 8, 2024, the United Launch Alliance made the first launch of the Vulcan Centaur heavy launch vehicle, which is to replace the Atlas V and Delta IV Heavy rockets. The launch vehicle performed perfectly, but unfortunately, the Peregrine lunar lander from Astrobotic Technology failed and was unable to complete its mission.
The first stage of the Vulcan Centaur, Vulcan itself, uses two BE-4 methane-oxygen engines from Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin company, as well as two relatively small GEM-63XL solid-fuel boosters from Northrop Grumman Space Systems. In different variations, the Vulcan Centaur can have from 0 to 6 of these boosters.
The second stage, Centaur V, is a new version of the Centaur upper stage, which has been flying into space since 1962. It has two time-tested RL10 hydrogen-oxygen engines from Aerojet Rocketdyne.
In various configurations, Vulcan Centaur can deliver up to 27,200 kg to low Earth orbit, or up to 12,100 kg to the lunar flight path. It was the latter that was supposed to happen during the test launch of the Vulcan Centaur.
There are no claims to the launch vehicle, as the failure occurred on the Peregrine spacecraft. At first, the vehicle failed to orient itself to the Sun, which interfered with the operation of the solar panels, then a fuel leak was detected, so the first lunar landing under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program did not take place. The next launch under this program is scheduled for February 2024. Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lunar lander is to be delivered to orbit by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
As for the Vulcan Centaur, the next launch in the VC4L configuration (4 solid rocket boosters, large payload fairing) is scheduled for April 2024. This will be the first flight of the new reusable Dream Chaser shuttle.
The estimated cost of each Vulcan Centaur launch is $100-200 million. Nevertheless, the rocket has already been contracted until 2029 for future launches of Dream Chaser, as well as for the delivery of US reconnaissance satellites into orbit, as well as Amazon’s Kuiper project satellites, which are intended to compete with SpaceX Starlink.