WASHINGTON \u2014 The grounding of United Launch Alliance\u2019s (ULA) Vulcan heavy lifter could result in launch delays and\/or reassignments to other launch providers for multiple upcoming Space Force and National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) missions, according to a senior service official.<\/p>\n
Lt. Gen. Douglas Schiess, Space Force deputy chief of operations, told the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday that the service is still \u201cactively looking through what the impacts will be\u201d but said \u201cseveral launches coming up\u201d could be affected. Specifically, those include the first Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared<\/a> \u2013 Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (Next-Gen GEO), a joint Space Force-NRO SILENTBARKER<\/a> neighborhood watch bird, and the Wideband Global SATCOM-11+<\/a>, as well as \u201csome NRO satellites and space domain awareness\u201d satellites.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are working through that,\u201d Schiess told lawmakers, \u201cand we will come back to you when we have some more information on that. But we understand this, and we\u2019re actively working on it.\u201d<\/p>\n While the Space Force makes decisions about any NSSL manifest changes on a case-by-case basis depending on many factors, including the priority of the payload involved, the immediacy of the planned launch date is a key driver. <\/p>\n Of the list of sats potentially affected by the Vulcan grounding, the WGS-11 and the Next-Gen GEO satellites are two of the satellites nearest to their planned launch dates \u2014 and thus the most likely to be first to feel any impacts. The WGS-11 satellite, built by Boeing, was set to lift on by the end of March, according to the website Rocketlaunch.org<\/a> that tracks upcoming launches.<\/p>\n The Next-Gen GEO, built by prime contractor Lockheed Martin with the infrared sensor payload provided by RTX, was originally supposed to fly in September 2025 <\/a>but was already delayed until \u201cno earlier\u201d than the end of this month by both troubles with the sensor and the Space Force\u2019s already overcrowded launch manifest.<\/p>\n A Space Systems Command (SSC) spokesperson today confirmed that those satellites \u201cmay be impacted by the anomaly\u201d with Vulcan\u2019s motors discovered during its otherwise successful Feb. 12 launch of the USSF-87 mission carrying two\u00a0Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP)\u00a0<\/a>neighborhood watch satellites.<\/p>\n