ULA's new Vulcan Centaur rocket aces 2nd test flight

[Admin]

United Launch Alliance's new Vulcan Centaur rocket just aced its second-ever mission, a key test flight that keeps it on track for certification by the U.S. Space Force.

ULA's new Vulcan Centaur rocket aces 2nd test flight : Read more

 

[Avenger 2.0]

Wouldn't call that 'aces' as the SRB anomaly (with the nozzle exploding) almost ended the mission...

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Why doesn't this article in Space.com include any mention of the problem with one of the strap-on solid rocket boosters?

From "that other site":

"the separation of the two GEM 63XL solid rocket boosters (SRB) took place nearly 30 seconds later than the timeline the company provided before launch. About 35 seconds after liftoff, there appeared to be material coming off one of the boosters, whose plume changed appearance, suggesting damage to the SRB’s nozzle."

"ULA did not mention the incident during the ascent, but the timing of subsequent events, including separation of the booster and the shutdown of the Centaur upper stage’s engines after an initial burn, were behind the timeline by up to 20 seconds."

"That certification process, if all goes well, could be completed in weeks, although the anomaly with the solid rocket booster could delay that."

What would the FAA do if this was a SpaceX launch? Why would they not declare this is a "mishap"? Why would they not put a hold on further launch licenses pending their review of ULA's corrective actions? After all, Boeing is a big part of ULA.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

The question on the table about bias is why didn't SpaceX report the anomaly, like Spacenews.com reported it. Space.com did report the anomalies and FAA responses for SpaceX launches, so why not for the ULA launch? It is especially significant for this particular launch because the only reason for this launch was to get NASA certification. It cost ULA a lot of money to do this launch without a paying customer with a functional payload.

 

[Wolfshadw]

Let's keep it civil here, folks.

Wolfshadw
Moderator

 

[fltpath]

A booster cone ejecting on takeoff is a very serious issue.
There is always a safety zone to protect surface vessels and aircraft from anomalies.
Where did this cone land?
Was it a danger to land, sea, or air?

This may be the same issue for the boosters ejecting 30 seconds late...still fall withing the target zone?

ULA was touting they had these solid boosters racked up in storage...I guess perhaps they do not age as well as expected?

 

[Unclear Engineer]

I doubt the nozzle would land outside a planned safety area, considering that planning is designed for much more serious problems. The real issue is what it might do to the core stage, either damage or failure to achieve proper orbit. Remember, this is supposed to be the new workhorse, replacing the Atlas V and Delta IV launch vehicles. It should be crew rated to fully fill that role. And, various versions of the Vulcan use 0, 2, 4 or 6 of these solid rocket boosters.

It might be logical and legally feasible to certify the Vulcan 0 booster version, given that part of the equipment worked fine and even compensated for the failure of one of the strap-on solid boosters. But, the versions that depend on the strap-ons really should not be certified at this point. Without seeing data, it is hard to know how many of those strap-ons have been used already and what their failure rate has been. But, if a Vulcan mission needs 6 of them to all work without anomalies, the data might not be there to provide confidence for that. I would not be surprised if there have been fewer of these strap-ons launched that Falcon 9 second stages.

 

[fltpath]

I doubt the nozzle would land outside a planned safety area, considering that planning is designed for much more serious problems. The real issue is what it might do to the core stage, either damage or failure to achieve proper orbit. Remember, this is supposed to be the new workhorse, replacing the Atlas V and Delta IV launch vehicles. It should be crew rated to fully fill that role. And, various versions of the Vulcan use 0, 2, 4 or 6 of these solid rocket boosters.

It might be logical and legally feasible to certify the Vulcan 0 booster version, given that part of the equipment worked fine and even compensated for the failure of one of the strap-on solid boosters. But, the versions that depend on the strap-ons really should not be certified at this point. Without seeing data, it is hard to know how many of those strap-ons have been used already and what their failure rate has been. But, if a Vulcan mission needs 6 of them to all work without anomalies, the data might not be there to provide confidence for that. I would not be surprised if there have been fewer of these strap-ons launched that Falcon 9 second stages.

Thank you for the information. It could be twofold, the cone itself, but also the booster trajectory without a cone, that would appear to create a different CG....

I was trying to find the TFR or NOTAM for the launch, but could not find it in the usual places.

 

[DrBoo]

"Vulcan Centaur seemed to perform well throughout the flight. The rocket ticked all the major boxes on schedule"

No, it did neither of those. A significant anomaly occurred in a SRB mid-flight, and the vehicle may have been lucky to have continued to orbit. It did not perform "on schedule" as the author claims. The separation of SRBs was significantly later than scheduled, for example. This appears to be inaccurate reporting at best - and such an anomaly as shown in the video and images are cause for serious concern. They certainly didn't "ace" this mission, and the rocket is now compromised in terms of perceived safety and ability to perform reliably.

I would hope/expect that in the interests of consistency, the FAA would immediately ground this rocket until ULA find and fix the fault and demonstrate the same level of "safety compliance" that FAA demands of SpaceX.

Better reporting, please. Use of terms such as "aced" and "ticked all the major boxes on schedule" are opinions - and incorrect ones at that. Just give the facts without the superlatives. That is, if you want to be a reliable and unbiased source of space news.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

I almost agree with DrBoo.

The caveat is that the core Vulcan booster and Centaur upper stage did perform properly, and even compensated for the strap-on booster failure. So, just referring to them as having "aced" their test may be true enough. But, the "mission" was definitely not a complete enough success to say that it was "aced". Vulcan with no strap-ons can probably be certified, but versions that require any strap-ons should not be certified at this point.

Regarding the issue of "bias" in the reporting and the regulating: That is often most detectable by comparing (1) what is not being said in the various sources of information, as well as (2) what emotion-laden words are selected to describe what is being said.

Space.com is disappointing me here, because of not only what it chooses to not mention, but how it chooses words to describe what it does choose to report.

For instance, we have seen Space.com articles about fired employees of SpaceX alleging sexual harassment, told from the perspective of those employees, but I don't remember Space.com ever reporting that Boeing plead guilty to criminal charges resulting from the Federal investigation of its 737 crashes and its failure to comply with corrective actions in a pre-decision settlement with the FAA. (Although Space,com may eventually have reported that somewhere, but long after I had posted it here.) From the perspective of what is important news for development of space hardware, the Boeing news seems much more relevant here, but was what was neglected in the choice for article subjects. It was big news, elsewhere.

I realize that Musk often irks people, frequently including me. But, that should not influence how actual facts are presented here.

It is important that "reporters" report the actual news, objectively and fully. Otherwise, all we readers get is propaganda built around parts of the news. And then we need to go listen to all sorts of biased reporting by the different "sides" on a politicized issue to get the complete picture of what is really happening.