Launch Report: ULA Launches Vulcan Cert-2, Vehicle Survives In-Flight SRB Failure

United Launch Alliance successfully launched its second Vulcan rocket this morning from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral. The launch was not a perfect one, however, as Vulcan survived a very close call when one of the two solid-rocket boosters on the first stage partially failed and lost its nozzle in flight.

Despite a partial loss of thrust from the errant SRB, ULA’s flight software and engineering teams were able to make corrections to trajectory of the rocket as it continued to ascent.

Later, ULA CEO Tory Bruno would say that the SRB had “an observation” and he added quickly that the mission was a success.

Vulcan uses Northrop Grumman-built GEM 63XL solid rocket boosters to provide additional thrust for the vehicle and to increase its capabilities. GEM motors have a long history of usage, and the 63XL edition was flying its third and fourth flights. Two other GEM 63XLs flew with no problem on Vulcan Cert-1.

Later on X.com, Tory Bruno stated, “All missions have propellant reserves. We add to that additional propellant margins based on the mass [and] the configuration of the rocket. Because this was compensated for within reserves, this anomaly was ‘invisible’ to the rocket.” Bruno credited “Robust design and well engineered avionics” for the resilience of Vulcan, and indeed, it is one of the very few rockets launched that had an SRB failure and still successfully completed their mission.

Launch Replay

Video starts at t-minus five minutes.

Next Launch:

The next launch from Florida is a tricky call: SpaceX and the FAA have “paused” Falcon family launches while the company investigates issues with Falcon 9s second stage — there was an “off-nominal” performance of the Crew 9 second stage after the astronauts had separated from the launch vehicle when the stage was relit to de-orbit and reenter Earth’s atmosphere.

At this time, SpaceX has not announced a return to flight for Falcon rockets, and the FAA has not yet released a safety determination on the Crew 9 event that would allow SpaceX to resume flights.

Both of those could come at any time, however, and given the short stand-downs earlier in the summer with other Falcon issues, odds are good that this delay will be shorter rather than longer.

Should SpaceX announce Falcon 9 returning to action, its next scheduled launch is for the European Space Agency and the Hera mission. According to ESA, “As part of the world’s first test of asteroid deflection, Hera will perform a detailed post-impact survey of the target asteroid, Dimorphos – the orbiting moonlet of a binary asteroid system known as Didymos.”

“Now that NASA’s DART mission has impacted the moonlet, Hera will turn the grand-scale experiment into a well-understood and repeatable planetary defence technique. Demonstrating new technologies from autonomous navigation around an asteroid to low gravity proximity operations, Hera will be humankind’s first probe to rendezvous with a binary asteroid system and Europe’s flagship Planetary Defender.”

• Date: NET October 7, 2024
• Organization: SpaceX / ESA
• Mission: Hera
• Rocket: Falcon 9
• Launch Site: SLC-40, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station
• Launch Window: 10:52 — 11:27 AM EDT
• Payload: Hera probe