First flight of the Vulcan rocket sends an American lander towards the moon
A brand new rocket lifted off early Monday morning from Cape Canaveral, Florida, sending a robotic spacecraft to the moon’s surface. No American spacecraft has soft-landed on the moon since 1972.
For United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the successful launch of the Vulcan Centaur rocket was crucial. Vulcan is designed to replace two older rockets, and the United States Space Force also relies on it to launch spy satellites and other spacecraft important to U.S. national security.
The Vulcan is also the first of several new rockets that could challenge the current dominance of the space launch market by Elon Musk’s company SpaceX. SpaceX sent nearly 100 rockets into space last year. Other first orbital launches in the coming months include the Ariane 6 rocket from Arianespace, a European company, and New Glenn from Blue Origin, the company founded by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Throughout the night the countdown to the Vulcan rocket went smoothly and the weather cooperated.
At 2:18 a.m. Eastern Time, the rocket’s engines ignited and took off from the launch pad, heading east over the Atlantic Ocean.
“Everything looks good,” Rob Gannon, the launch commentator for United Launch Alliance, said repeatedly as the Vulcan lifted off into space.
“Yee-haw,” said company CEO Tory Bruno after the lunar spacecraft deployed. “I’m so excited. How much I can’t tell you.”
United Launch Alliance was founded in 2006 and for seven years was the only company certified by the U.S. government to send national security payloads into space. So far it has used two vehicles: the Delta IV, developed by Boeing, which will complete its final flight later this year, and the Atlas V, developed by Lockheed Martin, which will also be retired in a few years.
There are still seventeen Atlas V launches left, but the rocket uses Russian-built engines, which became politically untenable with the rise of tensions between Russia and the United States. That prompted ULA to begin development of the Vulcan, which replaces the capabilities of both rockets at a lower cost, United Launch Alliance officials said.
“What’s unique about Vulcan, and what we originally set out to do, was to deliver a rocket that has all the capabilities of Atlas and Delta in a single system,” said Mark Peller, the ULA vice president in charge is for the development of Vulcan. “Because we do have that adaptability, the configuration can really be tailored to the specific mission.”
Vulcan can be configured in several ways. The core booster stage, the main body of the rocket, is powered by two BE-4 engines manufactured by Blue Origin. The engines, which emit deep blue flames from burning methane fuel, will also be used on Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket.
Up to six solid rocket fuel boosters can be attached to the side of the core to increase the amount of mass it can deliver into orbit. The nose cone has two sizes: a standard size of 15 meters long, and a longer one, 22 meters, for larger payloads.
“The launch market is more robust than it has been in decades,” said Carissa Christensen, the CEO of Bryce Tech, a consulting firm in Alexandria, Virginia. “And expected demand will likely be sufficient to support multiple launch providers, including Vulcaan.”
ULA already has a backlog of more than 70 missions to fly on Vulcan. Amazon purchased 38 launches for deployment to Project Kuiper, a constellation of communications satellites that will compete with SpaceX’s Starlink network to provide high-speed satellite internet.
Many of the other launches will be for the Space Force. ULA and SpaceX are currently the only companies approved to launch national security missions. Monday’s launch is the first of two demonstration missions the Space Force needs to build confidence in Vulcan before using the launch vehicle for military and surveillance payloads.
The second launch is to lift Dream Chaser, an unmanned spaceplane built by Sierra Space of Louisville, Colorado, for a cargo delivery mission to the International Space Station. That could then be followed by four additional Vulcan launches this year for the Space Force.
The main payload for Vulcan’s first launch was Peregrine, a spacecraft built by Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh. Founded in 2007, Astrobotic is one of several private companies looking to offer a delivery service to the moon’s surface. The main customer for this trip is NASA, which paid Astrobotic $108 million to conduct five experiments. This is part of the scientific work that the space agency is carrying out in preparation for the astronauts’ return to the moon under the Artemis program.
Unlike in the past, when NASA built and operated its own spacecraft, this time it is relying on companies like Astrobotic to provide transportation.
A second burn of the Vulcan’s second stage engine, lasting about four minutes, sent Peregrine on its way to the moon. “It’s a dream,” Astrobotic CEO John Thornton said on the NASA Television broadcast after the launch. “We are on our way to the moon.”
About 50 minutes after launch, the Astrobotic spacecraft separated from the rocket.
After a two-and-a-half week journey to the moon, the Peregrine lander will enter orbit around the moon and circle there until February 23, when it will attempt a landing in Sinus Viscositatis – Latin for ‘Bay of Stickiness’ – a enigmatic region on the near side of the moon.
Vulcan also picked up a secondary payload for Celestis, a company that memorializes people by sending some of their ashes, or DNA, into space. Two toolbox-sized containers attached to the small cylindrical capsules of the Vulcan’s upper stage.
Among the people whose remains are on this final journey are Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek; his wife, Majel Barrett, who played Nurse Chapel on the original television show; and three other actors on the show: DeForest Kelley, who played medical officer Leonard “Bones” McCoy; Nichelle Nichols, who played Uhura, the communications officer; and James Doohan, who played Montgomery Scott, the chief engineer.
One of the capsules contains hair samples from three American presidents: George Washington, Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy.
A final brief engine start sent the second stage and the Celestis monument into orbit around the sun.
Celestis, as well as another company providing similar services, San Francisco-based Elysium Space, also has a payload on Peregrine. That has sparked an outcry from leaders of the Navajo Nation, who say many Native Americans consider the moon a sacred place and consider sending human remains there a desecration. Navajo officials asked the White House to delay the launch to discuss the matter.
Charles Chafer, the CEO of Celestis, said he respected the religious beliefs of all people, but that “I don’t think you can regulate space missions based on religious reasons.”
During news conferences, NASA officials noted that they were not in charge of the mission and had no direct control over other payloads Astrobotic sold on Peregrine. “An intergovernmental meeting is being convened with the Navajo Nation that NASA will support,” Joel Kearns, deputy assistant administrator for research at NASA, said during a press conference on Thursday.
John Thornton, Astrobotic’s CEO, said Friday he was disappointed that “this conversation came up so late in the game” because his company had announced the participation of Celestis and Elysium years ago.
“We’re really trying to do the right thing,” Mr. Thornton said. “I hope we can find a good path forward with the Navajo Nation.”
NASA announced the program to tap private industry for lunar deliveries – called Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS for short – in 2018. But it was slow to get off the ground. After repeated delays, Astrobotic’s Peregrine flight is the first CLPS mission to reach space, and it will be the first to arrive in lunar orbit. But it may not be the first to land.
A second CLPS mission, by Houston-based Intuitive Machines, is expected to launch as early as mid-February and will follow a faster path to the moon, meaning it could reach the surface before Peregrine.
While Vulcan still has many payloads to launch in the coming years, its longer-term prospects are less clear. Other aerospace companies are looking to take over some of the Space Force business, and Amazon could shift many more of its Kuiper launches to Bezos’ Blue Origin in the future.
Another factor affecting Vulcan’s future is SpaceX landing and reusing its Falcon 9 boosters, which will likely give it a significant price advantage over ULA. In contrast, the entire Vulcan missile is used only once. Blue Origin also plans to reuse the New Glenn boosters.
ULA is developing technology that could be used to repair the two engines in the booster, the most expensive part of the rocket, but that will take years.