ULA Vulcan earns green light for national security launches

ULA Vulcan earns green light for national security launches
by Clarence Oxford
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Mar 30, 2025
Following a multi-year development effort and the successful completion of two rigorous certification flights, the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan rocket has officially received clearance from the United States Space Force to carry out National Security Space Launch (NSSL) missions.

"Thank you to all our customer partners who have worked hand-in-hand with us throughout this comprehensive certification process. We are grateful for the collaboration and excited to reach this critical milestone in Vulcan development," said Tory Bruno, ULA's president and CEO. "Vulcan is uniquely designed to meet the challenging requirements demanded by an expanding spectrum of missions for U.S. national security space launches. Moreover, this next-generation rocket provides high performance and extreme accuracy while continuing to deliver our customer's most challenging and exotic orbits."

The formal path to certification began in September 2016, when ULA and the U.S. Air Force agreed to a plan aligned with the New Entrant Certification Guide. Over time, ULA and Space Force teams completed 52 certification requirements, comprising over 180 distinct tasks. These included two flight demonstrations, 60 payload interface validations, 18 subsystem design and test reviews, and 114 audits covering hardware and software components.

"The SSC and ULA teams have worked together extremely closely, and certification of this launch system is a direct result of their focus, dedication, and teamwork," said Gen Panzenhagen, Program Executive Officer for Assured Access to Space.

ULA emphasized that the Vulcan's inaugural launch set a new benchmark in U.S. launch capabilities. "The Vulcan rocket's inaugural launch marked the beginning of a new era of space capabilities, providing higher performance while offering the world's only high energy architecture rocket," said Bruno.

Built around the high-performance Centaur V upper stage, Vulcan provides exceptional mission flexibility and orbital endurance. This advanced platform allows for complex orbital trajectories, including direct injection into Geosynchronous Orbit (GSO), a critical requirement to counter increasing space-based threats from adversaries like China and Russia.

"Vulcan's Centaur upper stage is a high-velocity and maneuverable platform to address evolving on-orbit threats in this new space warfighting domain and will offer extreme on-orbit endurance and flexibility for complex orbital insertions to meet the changing landscape and requirements of our nation," said Bruno.

The Vulcan rocket is offered in four standard configurations, equipped with zero, two, four, or six solid rocket boosters, depending on mission needs. At its core, propulsion is delivered by two BE-4 engines, developed as the most powerful liquefied natural gas-fueled, oxygen-rich staged combustion engines ever flown. Each BE-4 generates 550,000 pounds of thrust. With the adoption of these domestically built engines, Vulcan marks the end of U.S. dependence on the Russian RD-180 engine.