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ULA pace shifts with Atlas launch for Amazon, Vulcan progress

After a 10-month lag between United Launch Alliance’s workhorse Atlas V launches that ended with a national security mission earlier this month, preparations are already in the works for its next launch from Cape Canaveral.

The mission will be the first for Amazon’s Project Kuiper satellite constellation using an Atlas V on what would be the 99th launch of the rocket.

It’s the first of up to 47 contracted launches ULA has with Amazon as the Jeff Bezos company looks to launch a major chunk of its planned 3,236 satellite constellation that would compete with the likes of SpaceX’s Starlink and other broadband satellite networks.

Amazon bought rides on nine of what is now 18 of ULA’s remaining Atlas V rockets, and another 38 of its in-development Vulcan Centaur rockets. Amazon also has deals with Blue Origin with its in-development New Glenn rocket for launches from the Cape as well as from Arianespace with its in-development Ariane 6 rocket.

ULA, though, has more than half of the potential 92 total launches planned.

The payload for this first flight, dubbed Protoflight, is two test satellites headed to a low-Earth orbit of 311 miles altitude. The launch date has yet to be announced, but ULA had earlier targeted as soon as Sept. 26 for liftoff. That was before about a weeklong delay of its last launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41, the Atlas V on the SILENTBARKER/NROL-17 flight that was pushed because of a threat from Hurricane Idalia.

Still, teams began preparations for the next launch at the Cape with the booster for the Amazon Protoflight moved to ULA’s Vertical Integration Facility on Saturday to be hoisted onto the Mobile Launch Platform. Next up with be lifting the Centaur upper stage, which will be powered by an Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10A-4-2 engine, followed by the encapsulation of the two Amazon satellites.

It would be only ULA’s third launch of the year following a June mission of a Delta IV Heavy and the Atlas V launch earlier this month.

ULA Atlas V launches from Space Coast on mission for NRO and Space Force

Unlike the SILENTBARKER flight that used Atlas V’s full power of five solid rocket boosters, the Protoflight will use just the first-stage booster.

“These are Kuiper prototypes. Pretty lightweight,” said ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno on social media.

They were originally supposed to be part of the payloads on the much-delayed first launch of the Vulcan Centaur, which Bruno said could still fly in December.

Amazon, though, has a time crunch to get more than half of its planned constellation into orbit before July 2026 to keep its license rights from the Federal Communication Commission. So it opted to switch over from Vulcan to one of the nine Atlas rockets it had under contract to get the ball rolling with less than three years now before that FCC milestone deadline.

Amazon to set up $120 million Space Coast shop in competition with SpaceX’s Starlink

If all goes well with the first two test satellites, Amazon will begin mass production of the satellites, aiming to get as many of the remaining eight Atlas V launches up beginning in 2024. By the time launches are ready on ULA’s Vulcan Centaur, Amazon may also have its new satellite processing facility running on the Space Coast.

The $120 million, 100,000-square-foot processing facility is taking shape at a nearly 80-acre site at the Kennedy Space Center’s former Shuttle Landing Facility. The deal brokered by Space Florida, the state’s aerospace finance and development agency, promises as many as 50 jobs with an average salary of $80,000 as well as 300 jobs during construction.

As far as Vulcan Centaur goes, after an incident that ended up with a fireball and damage on a testing stand earlier this year delayed what had been a planned May launch, ULA has streamlined the verification testing process needed for its first launch, which still aims to send up Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander for its flight to the moon for the Certification-1 mission before the end of the year, Bruno said.

#vulcanRocket ‘s first flight CERT1 Centaur V is in IACO (final assembly)! (The world’s most advanced high energy upper stage must be properly accessorized…) pic.twitter.com/rYHH5TAPF3

— Tory Bruno (@torybruno) September 14, 2023

Bruno this week showed images of the upgraded Centaur stage that had received the fixes needed removing the risk of leaks that led to the testing stand fireball. It’s now in final assembly set to receive its upper-stage engines before being shipped to Cape Canaveral where it will be joined with the Vulcan first stage.

Future Vulcan Centaur missions for the Department of Defense will require more stringent test stand verifications, and ULA has also sent the replacement test hardware to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center to accomplish that.

The Vulcan Centaur will have the option to use up to six solid rocket boosters and a larger payload fairing. It’s the replacement rocket for both Atlas V and the lone remaining Delta IV Heavy set to launch next year.

“Vulcan will have actually more capabilities and Atlas, a little bit more than the Delta IV Heavy in a single stick,” Bruno said.

It’s powered by two BE-4 engines made by Blue Origin that provide 1.1 million pounds of thrust on their own. The SRBs could add enough power to bring 60,000 pounds of payload to low-Earth orbit.

For Amazon, that’s good news, as the Atlas V launches will account for less than 200 satellites with only about two dozen per launch. So Vulcan with a larger payload fairing should be able to put a bigger dent into that 1,600 target by 2026.