Sierra Space steps aside for Vulcan Cert-2 mission as next rocket arrives at Cape

On Saturday ULA received its second Vulcan rocket at Cape Canaveral from its factory in Alabama. This marks the start of a second launch campaign to certify the launch vehicle for national security missions. Then today, ULA announced that its next mission will fly an inert payload instead of Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser due to scheduling delays.

Over the last few weeks, ULA’s Rocketship made the long journey down the Mississippi River, through the Gulf of Mexico, and around Florida, before ending up at Port Canaveral to unload its special cargo. Inside Rocketship was the second Vulcan rocket ready for launch, Centaur upper stage and all.

This is the start of Vulcan’s second launch campaign and is in a rush to get it off by the end of the year to be certified for any national security launches.

Until this year, the hold up in Vulcan development was its engines. Vulcan uses two Blue Origin made, BE-4 engines on its booster. Late last year, years behind schedule, Blue Origin finally delivered the first flight ready engines to ULA.

ULA now has all the BE-4 engines needed to complete its 2024 launch manifest, which looks to be a total of four missions.

Sierra Space pushed off second Vulcan launch

After many more years of delays, the Sierra Space Dream Chaser was long advertised as the second launch of the Vulcan rocket. However ULA CEO Tory Bruno has decided it can no longer wait for it before getting NSSL certified.

In a press call, Bruno announced that the first Dream Chaser spaceplane will step aside from the Cert-2 mission and ULA will launch an inert payload and conduct tests on the Centaur V upper stage.

Bruno also shared it intends to launch at least two more Vulcan rockets by the end of the year after Cert-2: USSF-106 and USSF-87.

Dreamchaser, a winner of NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services-2 contract, has a launch estimation of September, according to NASA’s ISS schedule. However, according to Ars Technica, there is extreme uncertainty within NASA that will hold.

So in order to keep Vulcan on schedule with its priority missions, Dream Chaser will need to wait for a spot in line to launch.

ULA is at a make or break point for its commercial launch success. The phase 3 contract awards for the National Security Space Launch program will now have three providers instead of two. Meaning ULA will have an even lower cut of the launches, we already expect ULA to lose the majority of launches to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Heavy rockets.

Rumors continue to circulate that the company is looking for a sale from its parent companies: Boeing and Lockheed Martin. While there is still life in the company, it has repeatedly been beaten by new commercial-first space companies. So a restructuring of its priorities, which is currently government launch contracts, will be in order no matter who buys them.