United Launch Alliance prepares for crucial certification flight as U.S. Space Force watches closely | Space

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — As United Launch Alliance (ULA) readies its Vulcan Centaur rocket for its second test flight, a key milestone in the rocket’s certification process for national security launches, a senior U.S. Space Force official cautioned that a successful launch will not immediately guarantee certification.

“I’m definitely looking forward to that second certification flight. But it’s not instantaneous that if they have a clean flight, they’re automatically certified,” Brig. Gen. Kristin Panzenhagen, the U.S. Space Force’s program executive officer for assured access to space, said Sept. 18 at the Air Space & Cyber Conference.

ULA is projecting the Cert-2 mission to lift off in October. This will be the second of two flights required for the U.S. Space Force to certify Vulcan Centaur for launching sensitive national security payloads. The first flight, Cert-1, launched on January 8, successfully deploying Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander.

The Vulcan Centaur is designed to replace ULA’s Atlas 5 rocket for national security launches, a transition that is seen as critical to eliminating reliance on the Russian-built RD-180 engine, which powers the Atlas 5. In 2020, the Space Force selected ULA and SpaceX as its two primary launch providers under the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 2 program, a five-year contract…