Can ULA’s Vulcan Really Launch This Year?

Currently, the rocket that was most recently scheduled to lift off last month, is in United Launch Alliance’s factory undergoing necessary upgrades. After an upper stage test article exploded, the company found a weakness in the upper stage tank, and decided that Vulcan was not launching anywhere without fixing this problem.

Once discovered, Vulcan went from completing practically all of its pre-launch testing and preparing to liftoff in a month to being destacked and shipped away. Despite this significant hiccup, recent updates from ULA CEO Tory Bruno suggest that Vulcan will still lift off this year. A task that seems extremely unlikely given the circumstances and date.

This being said, physical progress is coming along and with most of the pre-launch testing already complete, ULA could have an opportunity to fast track the process and get Vulcan in the air before 2024. This is assuming that all the upgrades work as intended and no other issues are revealed within the next few months. Here I will go more in-depth into Vulcan’s upper stage reinforcement progress, what the company still needs to complete, the chances of a launch this year, and more.

Full article here - https://thespacebucket.com/can-ulas-v...

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Credit:
ULA -    / unitedlaunchalliance  

Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
0:57 - Repair Update
3:35 - Two Vulcan Launches