United Launch Alliance (ULA) is once again preparing to launch the NROL-44 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office. After the first attempt ended with a scrub and the second resulted in a pad abort at T-3 seconds in August, ULA stood down for about a month to fix the issue before a swing arm retract issue moved the mission to 29 September at 00:02 EDT (04:02 […]
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United Launch Alliance’s Delta IV Heavy rocket will make its first launch in over 19 months Thursday, carrying out a clandestine mission to deploy a surveillance satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office. Liftoff is expected between 02:12 and 06:16 Eastern Daylight Time (06:12-10:12 UTC), from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Thursday’s mission, designated NRO Launch 44 (NROL-44), marks the first Delta IV mission […]
Development and flight qualification for United Launch Alliance’s new rocket, Vulcan, remains on track and on schedule (with margin) to make its debut flights next year, as do all ground support facilities and flight software elements for the heavy-lift vehicle. Vulcan’s first two flights, certification missions to clear the rocket to fly category A/B national security payloads for the U.S. Space Force, will loft Astrobotic’s Peregrine […]
United Launch Alliance’s (ULA’s) Delta IV Heavy rocket has received its clandestine payload for the upcoming NROL-44 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office as teams continue launch preparations on SLC-37B at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, FL. The mission is set to launch at the end of August and comes as ULA wins 60% of the National Security Space Launch award from the U.S. Space […]
United Launch Alliance has announced their Vulcan rocket is progressing towards its maiden launch as soon as early-2021. While an exact launch target isn’t known yet, the mission will use a newly-built Launch Umbilical Tower while sharing Atlas V’s Vertical Integration Facility and SLC-41 launch pad in Florida. When first announced in 2014 as a “new booster,” ULA stated that Vulcan’s first flight was targeting 2019. […]
The next Atlas V to launch a mission to Mars is at the launch site, as United Launch Alliance (ULA) moved through “Launch Vehicle on Stand (LVOS)” operations for NASA’s Mars 2020 mission. The preparations are being conducted at Space Launch Complex-41 or SLC-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS). The pad flow has begun not long after the rocket had arrived in Florida. The […]
The United States Air Force’s X-37B spaceplane will begin its sixth mission with launch aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket Saturday. Atlas is due to lift off from Cape Canaveral during a two-hour, 29-minute window that opens at 08:24 EDT (12:24 UTC), with deployment of the X-37B into low Earth orbit likely to occur about twenty minutes later. Built by Boeing, the X-37B Orbital […]
United Launch Alliance is proceeding smoothly through the final round of preflight elements of the Atlas V rocket tasked with launching the U.S. Space Force’s X-37B spaceplane on its sixth mission next week. The Atlas V 501 rocket is slated to lift off from SLC-41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, on Saturday, 16 May. The precise launch time this day has not yet […]