Photo from ULA of the Vulcan launch. I’ll huff. I’ll puff. And I’ll blow your pad away. Just you wait…
Mission Rundown: ULA – Vulcan Centaur – Cert-1
Written: January 8, 2024
Knocking it out of the Park
United Launch Alliance (ULA) has done its part in returning the US to the Moon with the launch of Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander atop its brand-new Vulcan Centaur rocket.
Cert-1, The first-ever mission for Vulcan, lifted off on Monday, January 8, 2024 at 02:18:38 EST (07:18:38 UTC) during a 45-minute launch window. It took off from Space Launch Complex(SLC) 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
Vulcan was expected to fly in 2023 on Dec. 24, until routine problems with the ground equipment caused only a partial wet dress rehearsal (WDR). The chief executive of ULA, Tory Bruno said, “I’d like a FULL WDR before our first flight, so XMAS eve is likely out.”
This set the launch date to Jan. 8, 2024. Vulcan Centaur was rolled out 500 meters on the Vulcan Launch Platform on Friday, Jan. 5 for what was the final time before launch.
The Vulcan Payload
Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander will attempt to be one of the first US Moon landings since the end of the Apollo program. In 2019, Astrobotic was selected by NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) and given a 79.5 million dollar contract to build Peregrine to study the Moon before the Artemis III mission when humans return to it.
Peregrine now has 20 payloads on board, with five of them coming from NASA’s CLPS. These payloads include specific scientific projects with the main goals of looking for water ice in the lunar regolith and gaining more data on the radiation environment, the lunar exosphere, and the magnetic fields on the surface of the Moon. Some payloads are there to represent humanity with art and historical artifacts.
The ‘Blue Eyed’ Peregrine Lunar Lander is ready to be ‘swallowed’ whole by one of the 5.4 meter faring halfs. It makes you want to scream: ‘Look behind you’ – Play the music from ‘Jaws’
Around 40 minutes after separation from Centaur, Peregrine will come to life and will begin receiving signals from Astrobotic’s mission control center in Pittsburgh, PA.
There will be small adjustment maneuvers in Earth’s orbit to check systems for Peregrine’s lunar landing. After those are confirmed, Peregrine will aim its solar panels toward the sun to charge its lithium-ion battery for the long coast to the Moon.
Peregrine will land in Sinus Vicositatis on Feb. 23 and is expected to operate for eight days. If the mission is successful, Astrobotic will become the first commercial company to successfully land a spacecraft on the Moon.
Celestis Memorial Spaceflights are providing the opportunity to send DNA or cremated remains to deep space. The service called Voyager Memorial Spaceflight promises to send a piece of you or a loved one on a journey to 297 million kilometers into space.
There will be a memorial service and dinner for the friends family and loved ones who are sending their late friend or family member on one final journey before the launch on Monday.
Celestis Memorial Spaceflights have been around since 1997 and have launched on many different vehicles including Pegasus-XL, Falcon 1, Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and now they will fly on Vulcan Centaur.
The Vulcan Launch
ULA began loading the liquified natural gas, liquid hydrogen, and liquid oxygen propellant onto Vulcan late Jan. 7 to ensure full load by Jan.8 at 2:18 AM EST (7:18 AM UTC).
Then, the BE-4 engines ignited before liftoff at T-5 seconds and Vulcan started to gain altitude at T+1 second. It then began the pitch/yaw maneuver after clearing the tower.
Vulcan reached Mach one at T+1 minute and nine seconds before reaching max-Q or the maximum aerodynamic stress Vulcan will have to endure through its entire flight.
Around 35 seconds later, the GEM 63XL SRBs on the sides, burned out, will now prepare to be separated from the vehicle and were jettisoned.
The BE-4 engines continued to burn until booster engine cutoff at T+ 4:59. Six seconds later, the first stage was done with flight and separated from the second stage.
Centaur V then started its two RL-10 engines at T+5:15. Once the engines were lit, the fairings separated revealing the payloads at T+5:23.
Centaur continued its initial burn for a little over 10 minutes until T+15:45 into flight. At this point, Vulcan entered a coast phase, which lasted until T+43 minutes 35 seconds when the RL-10s relit for course correction to TLI while aiming for the Moon.
At T+47:37 the second stage shut down once again and coasted for just under three minutes. After this coast phase, the Peregrine lunar lander is placed in a highly elliptical orbit where it will then be released to intercept the Moon.
After Peregrine’s separation, Centaur relit one final time at T+1 hour 18 minutes and 24 seconds for 20 seconds to place Celestis Memorial Spaceflight’s ‘Enterprise Flight’ payload into a heliocentric orbit.
The official mission ended as anticipated at T+4:24:44.
The Vulcan Centaur rocket
After nearly a decade of development, Vulcan Centaur launched two payloads using the VC2S variant. The VC2S variant of Vulcan represents a Vulcan Centaur with two solid rocket boosters (SRB) and a standard fairing. This configuration can take Peregrine to the lunar surface and Enterprise Flight to deep space.
Vulcan is a two-stage rocket that uses liquefied natural gas and liquid oxygen on the first stage and liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen on Centaur V, the second stage. The first stage engines are two of Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines that have been in development since 2011. This will be BE-4’s first in-flight mission and will move ULA from Russian dependency with the RD-180 engines on Atlas V to American-made engines on Vulcan.
Attached to the side of the booster are two graphite-epoxy motors (GEM) 63XL SRBs built by Northrop Grumman. These will be the longest monolithic SRBs ever flown and will be a considerable upgrade to the GEM 63 SRBs used on Atlas V.
Vulcan Centaur split in major parts with a generic spacecraft as payload and no specific details
The second stage will use two RL-10 engines built by Aerojet Rocketdyne. These are the same upper-stage engines that Atlas V used and are proven to be extremely reliable. The standard 15.5-meter payload fairings will be aerodynamically covering the payloads during ascent until second-stage ignition where they will be jettisoned.
Vulcan is 61.6 meters tall and 5.4 meters in diameter. It will weigh 663,367 kilograms when fully loaded on the launch pad, and will produce 8.9 meganewtons of thrust at liftoff. This flight of Vulcan will be heading to a Trans-lunar Injection(TLI) to get a payload to the Moon and then change to a heliocentric orbit. This means with the two SRB Vulcan will be able to deliver up to 6,300 kilograms to the Moon.
