Video Transcript
After years of delays, a new player in the private spaceflight market has finally taken to the skies.
The United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket launched into space for the first time in early January. ULA — a joint venture owned by aerospace and defense giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin — said the mission marked a “new era” of capabilities in space and that the more than 200-foot-fall rocket would be able to deliver any payload to any orbit at any time.
Observers also noted, CNBC reports, that the rocket represents a new era in the space launch market, which for years has been dominated by SpaceX. The Vulcan provides a competitor to the Elon Musk-helmed spaceflight company, particularly for secretive — and lucrative — national security missions.
The launch of the Vulcan was also a boon for Blue Origin, the aerospace company established by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Blue Origin — which is reportedly considering a bid to buy ULA’s rocket operations from its parent companies — made Vulcan’s main engines.
The January launch was the first of two certification flights required by the U.S. Space Force. The second is scheduled “in the coming months.” ULA’s chief executive told CNBC last year that several missions are planned this year, building up to a rate of one Vulcan launch every other week.
The company said more than 70 Vulcan missions have been sold so far, and more than half are for Amazon’s “Project Kuiper” satellite internet constellation.
Although the debut launch successfully delivered its initial payload into orbit, the cargo itself ran into trouble shortly thereafter. The Peregrine — a robotic lunar cargo lander built by Astrobotic Technology — developed a fuel leak and was forced to abandon its mission.
