A great example of this this week is the United Launch Alliance’s Cert-2 mission.
If you’re in the weeds of the space world, hearing CEO Tory Bruno announce that ULA is going to bite the bullet and fly Cert-2 without a customer payload is a wild statement. After all, aren’t rockets expensive? Don’t rockets often wait months or even years before spacecraft are ready for launch? Why send an empty Vulcan at $100 million per orbit that no one will pay for, especially if ULA has sold more than 70 launches to customers?
The simple answer is that Cert-2 has a customer: the Pentagon. But let’s break it down.
National security missions are the most lucrative launch contracts in the billions of dollars a year in missile orders. Some of these are low-cost, experimental missions, but most are expensive, top-secret satellites that the Pentagon doesn’t want to let just anyone fly. Enter the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program.
ULA and SpaceX are already in the NSSL program, but whenever they bring a new rocket to market, Space Force requires a specific one the rocket successfully launched before being certified to fly on the NSSL mission. Hence the name of Vulcan’s second mission, Cert-2. The rocket took off for the first time in January, which was the first launch towards certification.
“What Space Force wants to see with Cert-2 is another successful flight just like Cert-1,” Bruno said at a press conference Wednesday.
After Cert-2, ULA will send Space Force “gigabytes of data for all the equipment on every part of the rocket,” Bruno said, and assuming they “don’t find any surprises,” Vulcan will be clear to launch the NSSL mission. .
ULA had planned to fly Sierra Space’s inaugural Dream Chaser cargo spacecraft on Cert-2, but Bruno said company CEO Tom Vice “felt it was taking too much risk against my needs. Dream Chaser is moving aside to be replaced by an “inert payload”, also known as a “bulk simulator” (think big block of concrete and metal) so Cert-2 can be launched by September.
Why the rush?
Well, the Pentagon has already bought a bunch of Vulcan launches and expects two of those missions — USSF-106 and USSF-87 — to fly by the end of the year. Air Force chief Frank Calvelli had already been pressing Bruno and ULA in a letter sent last month to the rocket company’s joint owners, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, outlining concerns “about the Vulcan delay.” The Air Force also fined ULA an undisclosed amount over the Vulcan delays.
One question mark that hung over the next three Vulcan missions is at least largely resolved: Blue Origin’s ability to supply the BE-4 engines for the rockets. The company supplied ULA with the six engines needed for its three launches, and Bruno noted that he has “much more confidence” in the relationship. That wasn’t the case a year ago, Bruno said, noting that his company was “very concerned” about securing the engines ULA needs. That’s when Blue Origin exploded the BE-4 engine during acceptance tests – the engine that was intended for the Cert-2 launch.
On-time deliveries of BE-4 engines will become even more important next year, as Bruno expects ULA to conduct 20 launches in 2025, half on Atlas V rockets and half on Vulcan. The company has 16 Atlas V rockets left to launch before going all-in on Vulcan.
The Pentagon is ULA’s most important customer. So while the military doesn’t have to pay for Cert-2 directly, the backlog of NSSL orders is why ULA is willing to pay out of pocket to launch the mission.
Oh, and there’s another open question about ULA’s long-rumored sale process. I thought, like everyone else, that the Vulcan’s successful debut earlier this year would seal the deal. Aside from Jeff Bezos selling shares earlier this year, Blue Origin looked like the likely winner. I’m speculating, but whoever wants to buy ULA can wait until Cert-2 – or maybe a friendlier FTC if there’s a change in the White House this November.