ULA Next Generation Launch System Announced
United Launch Alliance Unveils America’s New Rocket – Vulcan: Innovative Next Generation Launch System will Provide Country’s Most Reliable, Affordable and Accessible Launch Service
“United Launch Alliance (ULA) unveiled its Next Generation Launch System (NGLS) today at the 31st Space Symposium. The new rocket, Vulcan, will transform the future of space by making launch services more affordable and accessible.”
ULA to Unveil America’s Next Generation Launch System at Space Symposium
“Media are invited to participate in a news conference (remotely or in-person) on Monday, April 13, at 2 p.m. MT, during which United Launch Alliance (ULA) CEO Tory Bruno will unveil the Next Generation Launch System and its name, which was determined after more than one million votes received March 23 – April 6.”
Marc’s note: Whether by design or simple ignorance, ULA will hold a press conference today starting at 4:00 p.m. EDT. This is 33 minutes before SpaceX is set to launch a Falcon 9 on their sixth commercial cargo resupply mission and where they will try, for the third time, to land the Falcon 9 first stage on their drone ship in the Atlantic. While there is no doubt some media at the National Space Symposium will attend the news conference, I think many will be preoccupied with the SpaceX launch. If SpaceX is successful then ULA will be hard pressed to compete with the SpaceX story.
Keith’s note: What Marc said 😉 If ULA had an ounce of PR smarts they’d schedule this at a time when media are not distracted by vastly more interesting events.
Marc’s update: ULA is planning on reusing the first stage engines in an effort to directly compete with SpaceX. The race is on for reusability. But it must be noted while ULA released some information, Bruno was short on some specifics. The rocket will be called Vulcan.
They are only evolving themselves, rather than re-creating themselves.
Trying to compete using an Atlas “6”, with dual methane motors, solid clip-on boosters, and no reusability until much later is not a winning strategy.
Even their “reusability” is only to someday (in a Galaxy far, far away) recover just the engines and build a new rocket.
The only interesting part is the upper stage using a piston engine to pump fuel and generate power. This allows a long linger time upper stage.
The new methane 1st stage engines are costing a billion and the whole rocket 2 billion.
This will produce a rocket intermediate between the F9 and FH.
With this they hope to compete against a rocket system which has a future price point in the single digit millions.
USAF will want to maintain two launch systems going forward, so it is looking like this will be Falcon and NGLS/Atlas 6/Vulcan. I see the announced Vulcan name as an attempt to generate interest in their new vehicle (NAME OUR NEXT LAUNCH VEHICLE, VOTE NOW!!!) and to hide the fact that it’s really an evolved Atlas 5. At least they have not had to rename the entire company in an attempt to distance themselves from their past, which has happened in this industry before.
That’s pretty heavily evolved from Atlas 5, and in fact there is almost no trace of the original Atlas, so a name change is called for. It actually more closely resembles Delta IV in my opinion, so I’d have been fine with Delta V. But (Titan I to Titan II notwithstanding) switching to new fuel/new engines is about as close to a new launch vehicle as you can get.
Are the strap-on solids different than Atlas V? How will the Centaur upper stage be different than Atlas V?
Granted, when the new ACES upper stage is developed, it will have little in common with Atlas V (except perhaps the strap-on solids). But to start with, it sure looks like an Atlas V with a different first stage to me.
The solids will be longer. Centaur is just a gapfiller because ULA wants to reduce cost and risk by not developing both a new first stage and a new second stage at the same time. Until the RD-180 debacle last year, it was widely speculated that ACES would be ULA’s next project.
What’s “an Atlas V with a different first stage”? Atlas V is basically an Atlas booster and a Centaur second stage, the contemporary version of the classic Atlas-Centaur. Vulcan only keep the Centaur, and that’s only an interim design. It could easily be called Vulcan-Centaur. So where’s the Atlas part again?
The real problem with the new name is that it’s already taken (see http://www.vulcan.com). ULA’s lawyers should have caught this. Oops.
Wasn’t it already taken long before Paul Allen? There’s the Vulcan kitchen equipment, the Vulcan cannon on F-15 and F-16, the Vulcan bomber, the Vulcain engine (French spelling) rocket engine?
Where Spock was born…. the Roman god,.. the volcano in Papua New Guinea…many, many more
When a name is used in a completely different “space”, you can usually get away with it. But, ULA might get into trouble because Paul Allen is using it as part of Vulcan Aerospace. For example, Apple Records existed before Apple Computers, but they were in completely different markets (to start with) so they both agreed to share the name. But, Apple Records got quite upset at Apple Computers when their computers started playing music, they released the Apple Ipod, Apple iTunes, and etc. It got messy.
Yale: why/how does a piston engine give them a longer upper stage time? I can’t get motorcycles and lawnmowers out of my mind when I read ‘internal combustion”!
http://www.ulalaunch.com/up…
Also see XCOR http://spacenews.com/36548x…
“Whether by design or simple ignorance” doesnt quite apply to a mission that has the following track record; Delayed from Dec. 5, Feb. 4, April 8 and April 10. [April 1] (ref spaceflightnow.com)
This announcement has been on the books for a while.
Not publicly. And hey their doing this at the National Space Symposium. They could have done it tomorrow, Wednesday, or Thursday.
Maybe they’re hoping for bad weather.
update – they got it. Scrubbed for the day.
And as soon as the SpaceX launch was scrubbed for the day, I started looking for info about NGLS, which turns out to be Atlas 6 with a cool new name chosen by the Internet (cough, Star Trek fans, cough).
I’m a Star Trek geek, and I voted for Eagle.
If ULA had an ounce of PR smarts they’d schedule this at a time when media are not distracted by vastly more interesting events.
@torybruno tweeted the date of this well before SpaceX moved their launch date back to match this date. I had asked him for date very early on, and he replied with date. When Spacex launched moved to that day he just held his date. I’m pretty sure his speech time was preset too, because as soon as I learned they were same day, I asked him what time his speech was and he replied with the time. Later he tweeted he was first and didn’t change for SpaceX
Your space-connections are impressive, dude:-)
@torybrunos outreach is.
opps.
Competition is good. ULA is doing what THEY THINK is the right thing! Hooray. All of us will be able to decide if their plan is a good one. The market will decide.
I love SpX and people want to throw ULA under the bus quickly. I say kudos if they are going for a methane-lox first stage. What I want to know is why other rocket motor companies are not moving towards building their own methane-lox?
More relegation to the annals of history.
Innovate… or die.
This methane-LOX engine is being developed by Blue Origin for its own use. It will also be sold to ULA for use in its future launchers.
Meanwhile, SpaceX has been working on the methane-fueled Raptor engine since about 2012 at varying degrees of effort. SpaceX was said to have begun tests at Stennis in Spring 2014. Raptor is a designation for what’s expected to be a family of engines of varying thrusts.
Any links on varying thrusts???? I thought Musk said one size??
Competition is good. Their advanced upper stage will enable some unique mission profiles. I’m doubtful that they’ll be able to get the cost of this new vehicle much below Atlas V, but time will tell.
Did they mention a “heavy” variant? I would think that in the long run, they will want to eliminate Delta IV Heavy.
Bruno has said that the D4-H would cost in the billion dollar per launch range if the other Deltas were closed out.
I think the 6 SRB and new upper stage is the D4-H replacement
Should be cheaper than D4-H, but I’m still a bit let-down that ULA is taking the “evolutionary change” route while they’re facing “revolutionary change”. If I were Tory Bruno, my fear would be that by the time Atlas 6 with the ACES upper stage is flying and engines are being snagged in mid-air that SpaceX would be starting to recover both stages on their fully reusable LOX/methane TSTO.
Oh well, I suppose there will always be USAF contracts due to the desire to keep two launchers in operation at all times.
Vulcan with the upcoming ACES (to be named later) upper stage (replacing Centaur or DCSS which will be used at first) will be able to accommodate Delta IV-Heavy payloads circa 2023.
They say 100million per launch. 24 tons with more and larger SRM. With more upper stage motors they will be the same as Delta Heavy. This stage looks like the one that will be used on SLS. The Roush piston engine will drive a compressor to refreeze the boil off. The engine reuse is the one they came out with several years ago and has been well discussed here. They will only be competitive since they are the only other one. Unless O-ATK come up with something and puts them out of business. ATK is in competition for the SRMs, so they may be happy with that.
Atlas shrugged.
….. then blew off the powerpack, encapsulated it in an inflatable heatshield and did a Genesis …. What could possibly go wrong there? I am guessing that one never happens unless Uncle Sam covers the NRE.
USAF used to recover film capsules from spy satellites in much the same way. They’ll be comfortable with this recovery technology. The other advantage to this approach is the small amount of mass added to the first stage.
That said, I think this is inferior to recovering the entire first stage intact. SpaceX has yet to demonstrate this, so I am not going to count my chickens before they hatch. But if SpaceX is successful at recovering and re-flying an entire first stage, I think they’ll be ahead of ULA in the area of reusability.
I’m here for the launch today and will head to Jacksonville tonight, to photographs your chicks 🙂
Maybe I’ll photograph egg shells after wiping egg off my face. 🙂
Classic ULA, wrapping the rocket in the flag. It’s a step always sure to please congress…
That kind of PR always pisses me off.
Every time I hear that. I think dam straight it’s our rocket, cause we have been paying through the nose for it, when we shouldn’t have had to.
ULA and ATK both pulled the same trick. What is more interesting is that both outright state in their publicity materials that their launchers (Vulcan and Liberty respectively) are the only way that the US will get into space on an indigenous vehicle. As well as being an outright falsehood, it exposes a little of the company’s mindsets – that they are seeking and will only be satisfied with a USG launch monopoly in their respective sectors.
Oh come off it Keith and Marc. ULA announced this press conference on March 23rd. SpaceX rescheduled CRS-6 on March 31st. Unless Nostradamus is working for ULA, a better complaint might be why SpaceX schedule their launch 30 minutes after ULA’s press conference.
I have no particular love for ULA but this kind of complaining, in total contradiction to the facts, is unbecoming.
If they had half a PR brain they’d have changed the time to maximize media exposure.
Seems like they got plenty of exposure to me judging from all the news stories. However, since you’re a leading authority on public relations and run a thriving PR business you probably know better.
No wait… you’re a blogger that thinks he knows more about everything than anyone else. Never mind.
It’s really a shame that the useful information shared by this blog is often overshadowed by your arrogance and ego.
Please insert standard comment about it being your web site and if people don’t like it they should not read it below…
Your sole purpose in visiting this site is to pick a fight in the comments section via anonymous taunts. See ya.
Yawn – this has been in their library for seven years.
http://www.ulalaunch.com/up…
Agreed. ULA has been unwilling to invest in new tech to date, because they didn’t have to. Now that SpaceX is nipping at their heels, they finally decided to innovate, just a little bit.
Doesn’t Arianespace already use the name “Vulcan” for their Ariane 5 first stage motor??
Was SEP, then SNECMA and now SNECBUS Vulcain 2 to you sir…. Anyway it’s French and doesn’t count. More Freedom Fries with that launcher?
That’s what they call the engine- Vulcain 2.
I predict ULA getting a “WTFAYD!!!” letter from Paul Allen (with a Vulcan Aerospace letterhead on top).
OTOH, it’s a cooler a name (after the god of fire, not Mr. Spock’s late-planet), than those seriously lame candidates they wanted us to vote for.
Did Paul Allen get WTFAYD letters from General Electric (Vulcan cannon) or British Aerospace (Vulcan bomber), or SNECMA (Vulcain engine), or the Vulcan company that makes kitchen equipment, or…
The first hint should have been that “http://www.vulcan.com” is already a domain registered to Paul Allen and it clearly includes “space” on the main page. This name should have been immediately rejected by ULA’s legal team.
It’s still a planet in the prime universe.
Was the best of the lame bunch.
A name I thought of was Transender
Maybe MCT could be a transender
Regarding the name, the ULA “Suits” should’ve consulted with my spouse who works there and can free recall all the Greek Mythology she learned in high school: (thank you, Alabama Public Schools!).
Vulcan, though powerfully-built from the waist up, was severely deformed from the waist down. Had the “Suits” asked me, I’d have recommended they name their new bird after Vulcan’s weapon of choice: Thunderbolt. I understand that name will be coming available after this myopic Administration retires one of the finest CAS aircraft that ever was. Discuss…
This is purely me but I think that we are seeing EELV Phase II emerge from the twin unforeseen circumstances of SpaceX actually being able to launch USG payloads and Russian engines suddenly becoming unpopular.
It will be interesting to see if ULA presents Vulcan Heavy and Vulcan Super-Heavy (five cores and a wide-body upper stage) as an alternative to the post-SSME SLS with Black Knights.