<\/p>\n
Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org<\/p>\n
United Launch Alliance\u2019s new Vulcan Centaur rocket is slated to fly its second national security mission in February\u2014nearly six\u00a0months after its first operational launch and\u00a0almost a\u00a0year after it was certified to launch military payloads for the Space Force<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The company announced Jan. 7 that the mission, dubbed USSF-87, will lift off\u00a0Feb. 2 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base, Fla. Flying onboard Vulcan will be two Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program<\/a> satellites, the seventh and eighth in the constellation, which\u00a0observe\u00a0and track objects and activity in orbit. The spacecraft\u00a0were\u00a0expected to launch last year, but the mission was postponed due to earlier Vulcan development and certification delays.\u00a0\u00a0\t\t<\/p>\n Vulcan\u2019s long-awaited second military mission, its first of 2026, follows a 2025 that fell short of ULA\u2019s projections.\u00a0It also comes amid the high-profile departure of CEO Tory Bruno, who announced in December he would leave the company to lead national security programs at Blue Origin, a direct competitor to ULA.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt has been a great privilege to lead ULA through its transformation and to bring Vulcan into service,\u201d Bruno said in a post on X. \u201cMy work here is now\u00a0complete\u00a0and I will be cheering ULA on.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s\u00a0not clear yet what Bruno\u2019s departure will mean for\u00a0the company,\u00a0a Lockheed Martin-Boeing joint venture and, until recently,\u00a0the government\u2019s longtime launch provider of choice.\u00a0For its part,\u00a0ULA\u00a0says it will continue to be \u201ca steadfast partner of the Space Force.\u201d Lockheed and Boeing have appointed ULA\u00a0Chief Operating Officer John Elbon to serve as interim CEO as they search for a permanent replacement.\u00a0<\/p>\n In recent years,\u00a0SpaceX, with its mastery of reusable rocketry, has unseated the firm from its dominant position in the national security market. And competition from\u00a0companies\u00a0like\u00a0Blue Origin,\u00a0a new entrant to national security launch, could pose further threats, experts say.\u00a0<\/p>\n Todd Harrison,\u00a0a senior defense fellow\u00a0at the American Enterprise Institute,\u00a0said ULA\u2019s decision not to make Vulcan reusable from the start put the company at risk, making\u00a0it\u00a0difficult\u00a0for the rocket to compete.\u00a0Of note, ULA does have a plan to eventually recover Vulcan\u2019s engine through a system called Sensible Modular Autonomous Return Technology, which it expects to start flight testing next year.\u00a0\u00a0\t\t<\/p>\n \u201cULA\u2019s fate has been in jeopardy since it decided to make Vulcan an expendable launch vehicle years ago, and now I think Bruno\u2019s departure will only accelerate its decline,\u201d Harrison told Air & Space Forces Magazine. \u201cSadly, I would not be surprised if ULA\u00a0ceases\u00a0to exist by the end of this decade.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2023, multiple news outlets reported that ULA was up for sale, naming Blue Origin among the interested buyers, though a deal never materialized.\u00a0Harrison\u00a0speculated\u00a0the reported failed\u00a0transaction\u00a0and Bruno\u2019s\u00a0subsequent\u00a0move\u00a0could\u00a0indicate\u00a0that\u00a0Blue Origin saw\u00a0promise\u00a0in at least one part of the company\u2014its leadership.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think Blue Origin may be extracting the value it wants by bringing over Bruno without the cost of ULA\u2019s legacy workforce, somewhat redundant vehicle, and aging infrastructure,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Caleb Henry,\u00a0director of\u00a0research at analytics firm Quilty Space, said\u00a0Bruno\u2019s success in shepherding ULA through a rapidly changing launch market is laudable.\u00a0While Bruno\u2019s decision to leave\u00a0ULA\u00a0\u201ccertainly turned some heads,\u201d\u00a0Henry\u00a0told Air & Space Forces Magazine,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0not unprecedented for a CEO to transition after seeing a major project\u2014like the development of a next-generation rocket\u2014through to completion.\u00a0And for Blue Origin, it makes sense to bring on a leader with national security experience as the company looks to break into the military space market.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Still,\u00a0Henry\u00a0noted,\u00a0ULA and Vulcan have a long road ahead.\u00a0\t\t<\/p>\n One challenge, he said, is scaling\u00a0the\u00a0rocket\u2019s\u00a0production and increasing\u00a0its\u00a0launch cadence so that it can meet demand from customers. Last year,\u00a0Vulcan\u00a0was targeted to launch 10\u00a0missions, but\u00a0flew only once following a malfunction during its second certification flight in October 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cVulcan needs to scale up, and I can\u2019t think of a launch company that hasn\u2019t described the scale-up process as just as difficult, if not more difficult, than getting to the launch pad that first time,\u201d Henry\u00a0said.\u00a0<\/p>\n ULA\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0the only company on-ramping a new rocket, which presents another challenge: competition.\u00a0Rocket Lab, Stoke Space, Firefly, and Relativity are all slated to debut their new rockets this year, and Blue Origin\u2019s reusable New Glenn, which flew twice in 2025, is two launches away from potential certification for Space Force missions.\u00a0\u00a0The company successfully recovered the rocket\u2019s first stage after its second launch in November.<\/p>\n Of course,\u00a0ULA also faces\u00a0competition\u00a0from\u00a0SpaceX, the now-dominant launch firm <\/a>that holds\u00a0the majority of\u00a0contracts for future Space Force missions. Last April, for the first time, SpaceX won the majority share of the Space Force\u2019s National Security Space Launch missions<\/a> slated to fly between fiscal years 2027 and 2032. Under the deal, SpaceX is projected to fly 28 missions while ULA is tapped for 19.\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite these challenges, Henry said ULA is still very much in the race to\u00a0join SpaceX as the next \u201cmainstay\u201d heavy launch vehicle provider\u2014especially with a new, proven vehicle rolling off the line.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI think the jury\u00a0is still out there,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I\u00a0actually think\u00a0that 2026 and 2027 will be pivotal years to\u00a0determine\u00a0who secures that spot.\u201d\u00a0\n<\/p>\n Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[12870,133635,84719,111,139,133636,69,147,26707,34914,54340,79816],"class_list":{"0":"post-222821","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-blue-origin","9":"tag-national-security-space-launch","10":"tag-new-glenn","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nssl","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-space-force","17":"tag-ula","18":"tag-united-launch-alliance","19":"tag-vulcan"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}