ULA

For ULA, 2024 was supposed to be the year of Vulcan. The year it debuted and the year it began flying national security missions. While it debuted, and flew a few times, delays to its certification have pushed that second goal to 2025.

On this holiday week, we’re discussing SpaceX’s recent approval for Starship Flight 7’s launch license well ahead of the planned launch date, and almost overnight, Europe has another launch provider to bid on contracts with Avio’s takeover of the Vega C rocket.

This week we’re discussing SpaceX’s recent valuation of $350 billion, a staggering higher valuation than what was previously expected. Blue Origin is also still attempting to launch its first New Glenn rocket but is apparently battling regulators to get approval to complete its pre-launch tests.

Welcome back to another edition of Terminal Count. Starship has continued to command the news cycle even after its launch last month. That will likely not change for the foreseeable future; however, NASA’s Artemis 2 mission is entering the chat with the start of SLS stacking.

Boeing, the once esteemed aerospace contractor has had its hands in almost every national space program since Apollo. However, it seems likely that the company wants to divest itself of almost all of its space programs.

New photos and planning documents show potential Starship-sized expansions at SpaceX‘s Roberts Road facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The company is also planning four Falcon 9 launches this week. Meanwhile, its closest thing to a near-term competitor, Blue Origin, is gearing up to debut its New Glenn rocket.

This week SpaceX returns with the FAA‘s okay to resume launches, starting with ESA‘s Hera mission to the asteroid Didymos. Late-week weather around the Florida Peninsula will, however, likely delay several missions the company has.

ULA launched its Cert-2 mission on its brand new Vulcan rocket early Friday morning. While there was an obvious anomaly in one of its solid rocket motors, the company states the mission was a success. Now ULA and the Space Force will have to review flight data in order to gain certification for its lucrative National Security Space Launch missions.

It will be another quiet week with SpaceX having yet another issue with its second stage. On Friday, SpaceX hopes to return, but the more exciting mission will be Vulcan‘s second flight, also on Friday. This mission will be its second and hopefully final certification flight for NASA and the Space Force.

ULA finished assembly of its second Vulcan rocket at its Vertical Integration Facility at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station last week. The rocket is finishing up final checks before launching an important second certification mission for the U.S. Space Force.

ULA launched an Atlas V rocket early this morning carrying a classified payload. This was the Atlas V’s final national security payload, with the remaining NSSL missions being carried out by the company’s new Vulcan rocket.

This week we have a total of four launches on the schedule as of right now. Two of the missions are coming from SpaceX with the remaining two coming from Rocket Lab and ULA. The highlight for the week will be the Atlas V launch, as it will be ULA’s final Atlas launch for national security missions.

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.

After about a month of delays due to a helium leak and review of its propulsion system, Boeing and NASA are ready to launch the final test flight of the Commercial Crew Program, Starliner Crewed Flight Test.

Spoiler alert: This is looking to be a very busy week for rocket launches and not a single one is coming from a company outside the US (Rocket Lab is an exception). Starship, Starliner, and Virgin Galactic all have big missions this week.

ULA has completed repairs to Atlas V‘s ground launch sequencer, which was the cause of Saturday’s last-minute abort to Boeing‘s first crewed liftoff. Starliner’s CFT mission has been rescheduled for Wednesday, June 5 at 10:52 A.M. ET.

This week will be the third week in a row the headline launch is supposed to be Boeing’s Starliner Crewed Flight Test. SpaceX is also planning another banger of a week with three launches and Rocket Lab shows up again.

ULA announced last week that it will be building a second cargo ship capable of transporting its Vulcan rocket hardware from its factory in Decatur, Alabama and its launch sites on both the East and West Coasts. The press release also emphasizes the importance Amazon‘s Kuiper satellite constellation plays in Vulcan’s launch services.

Once again the big story this week will be the reattempt of Boeing’s CFT mission to the International Space Station. After a week of analysis, ULA is changing out a valve on the rockets upper stage which is what caused the abort last week.

After an extremely smooth countdown and crew egress, ULA controllers called a scrub Starliner’s Crewed Flight Test a few hours before planned liftoff due to a misbehaving valve. While the problem is a known issue by ULA, it will take a few days to trouble shoot, meaning the next launch attempt won’t be until at least Friday.

After a long road of delays, technical failures, and two inflight tests, Boeing‘s Starliner is finally at the pad and ready to launch later today. The mission will be a major milestone for Boeing, who is desperate for a win right now, but it might show that the world has moved on from legacy providers.