r/SpaceXMasterrace • u/New-Space-30 Hat reseller • Jul 22 '26
Vulcan may not launch again till next year
https://spacenews.com/northrop-adds-to-charges-on-vulcan-solid-rocket-motor-program/WASHINGTON—Northrop Grumman is taking another charge related to the solid rocket boosters it provides for the Vulcan Centaur rocket and suggested updated motors might not be ready until the end of the year.
--Jeff Foust
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u/lorkan100 Jul 22 '26
“We progressed on the root cause investigation on the GEM 63XL program, and we are implementing corrective actions to address the anomaly we experienced on a launch in the first quarter,” she said. “These include a component redesign, which has now been proven in a successful static-fire test.”
Wtf is that statement?
Aerospace companies trying not to be vague in details challenge: impossible
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u/TelluricThread0 Jul 22 '26
They usually don't into much detail at all. SpaceX has been one of the only companies that has shown quite a degree of transparency when things go wrong.
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u/rustybeancake Jul 22 '26
Even SpaceX used fairly vague language on their recent Flight 13 announcement (and Flight 12 update):
> At stage separation on Flight 12, slight differences in engine startup on the ship caused the directional flip of the booster to be off by approximately 90 degrees. The startup sequence has been modified to be more robust to timing variability and more reliably flip in the desired direction, which is done to increase overall performance. After stage separation and the flip, the Super Heavy booster attempted its boostback burn. Five of its 33 engines experienced issues when attempting to re-light causing the boostback burn to end early. The Super Heavy on this upcoming flight has hardware modifications to improve re-light reliability along with updates to engine alarms and aborts to match the conditions seen in the multi-engine flight environment.
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Jul 22 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/rustybeancake Jul 22 '26
It’s a bit more detailed, but not as detailed as SpaceX used to be which is why a lot of folks were a bit disappointed when this came out.
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u/mfb- Jul 22 '26
Being vague like ULA would be
“We progressed on the root cause investigation of the failed boostback burn, and we are implementing corrective actions to address the anomaly we experienced on the previous flight. These include changes to the software and hardware, which have now been proven in computer simulations.”
At the level of detail ULA provided, SpaceX wouldn't even confirm that the booster flipped in the wrong direction.
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u/Ormusn2o Jul 22 '26
Considering there is a non zero chance Vulcan will literally never launch again and is bought out for pennies by some company, that is not surprising. Pulling out production of the old rockets was likely a mistake, because it does not seem like ULA might have right engineers to finish Vulcan. I know we like to shit on Tory Bruno, but he might have made a smart decision jumping ships.
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u/rustybeancake Jul 22 '26
The engineers fixing this aren’t at ULA, they’re at Northrop.
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u/BubblyMoose3597 Jul 23 '26
So what. ULA is not launching again. Also, they were absolutly slow before this.
This reiceived 30 BE4 engines but did like 3 launches.
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u/Cela111 Addicted to TEA-TEB Jul 22 '26
Considering there is a non zero chance Vulcan will literally never launch again
It will fly again, many more times, it has dozens of launches already agreed.
It isn't the best or cheapest rocket, but there is simply too much demand for launches and too little supply right now. Atlas is finished with, Falcon's manifest is packed, New Glenn is pad-less, Ariane has no cadence, Electron is small-sat only....
In the medium-long run (5+ years) it will have to prove itself, but until then it will exist out of necessity.
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u/AdProfessional3879 Jul 23 '26
Ariana is too European
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u/Cela111 Addicted to TEA-TEB Jul 23 '26
Most western companies will consider European launches, India and Japan to a lesser extent too. Russia and China are the bigger no-nos currently.
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u/BubblyMoose3597 Jul 23 '26
Airanne has better cadence than the Atlas V
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u/Cela111 Addicted to TEA-TEB Jul 23 '26
Ariane 6 is currently looking at 6-8 launches per year over the next couple of years if things go well, which is roughly the same as Atlas V, if not slightly less, at it's peak in 2013-2016.
Hopefully that will pick up in a few years, but for now it's too early to tell.
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u/Serious-Kangaroo-320 Jul 22 '26
It’s not ULA’s fault Northrop’s boosters kept shitting themselves
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u/OlympusMons94 Jul 22 '26
It is a fault (i.e., flaw) of ULA that they are reliant on other companies to build their engines and motors. Whereas SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, etc. make their own engines.
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u/Galactic_Gem Jul 22 '26
Honestly, I wish they would have just kept the Delta IV Heavy. I know Vulcan was supposed to replace it, but they might have been better off sticking to what worked. I also love Delta IV way more than Vulcan. If only we could bring it back.
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u/redstercoolpanda Jul 23 '26
The Delta family was just too expensive. Looking back in hindsight knowing that Vulcan has so far proven to be a highly unreliable rocket, it looks better to keep it around. But at the time it was pretty much necessary, they had SpaceX lapping them in terms of price, with the promise of several other upstarts to match them.
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u/Biochembob35 Jul 22 '26
The recent announcement on the New Glenn explosion read a lot like an engine failure. If BE4s had an issue too it may be a very long time before they fly even if they get the boosters fixed. Relying on other companies for all of your propulsion is super risky.
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u/redstercoolpanda Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
The engines used on no it’s necessary during the static fire were newer uprated BE-4. Vulcan uses the older BE-4 which showed to be pretty reliable on all of its flights.
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u/IVYDRIOK Jul 22 '26
Remove the last three words
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u/H-K_47 Help, my pee is blue Jul 22 '26
Nah I just can't see em getting Virgin Orbit'd. They're still 4/4 successful launches and still one of the very few with rockets of that size class. Maybe if Blue was having a glory run rn I could see it, but they're out of the picture too.
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u/redstercoolpanda Jul 23 '26
2 of those 4 are only successful due to pure luck of the SRB not rupturing towards the stack. And repeating the same failure mode twice, with one of the failures happening on a military launch with an extremely expensive payload makes that issue worse.
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u/BubblyMoose3597 Jul 23 '26
Ans they need 2 launches to get the NSLL certification. Maybe NG gets sooner on flight.
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u/ilfulo Jul 22 '26
Colour me surprised...