CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (WHNT) — United Launch Alliance’s countdown is on for the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command mission using a primarily Alabama-made rocket.
The rocket used in the USSF-106 mission will be ULA’s Vulcan Rocket. ULA said this is the rocket’s first U.S. national security mission.
The rocket is set to launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida in a one-hour launch window: August 12 between 7:59 p.m. and 8:59 p.m. EDT.
The rocket itself is made throughout the country, but the majority of it is made right in Decatur.
The Vulcan is said to carry two U.S. national security satellite missions directly into geosynchronous orbit. ULA said this launch is said to be one of the longest launches ever for the company, a marathon extending more than 22,000 miles (35,000 km) above Earth and lasting over seven hours to complete.
“USSF-106 will use the most powerful Vulcan yet, with four side-mounted solid rocket boosters (SRBs), for a liftoff thrust of nearly three million pounds (13.3 megaNewtons). The flight-ready silver and red Vulcan stands 202 feet tall (61m) and will weigh 1.7 million pounds (790,000 kg) once fueled with cryogenic propellants for launch,” ULA wrote.
Below is a gallery of photos of the rocket, provided by ULA.
Based on the ULA Live Updates feed, the forecast for the launch date was “75% GO” on Sunday. The rocket, to prove its power, is said to generate three million pounds of liftoff thrust to launch the USSF-106 mission.
ULA said it has successfully delivered 100 of the 121 missions to orbit for the U.S. Space Force and National Reconnaissance Office since the company’s founding in 2006.
“The payloads feature demonstrations and experiments from Department of Defense customers, including the Navigation Technology Satellite-3 (NTS-3). The Air Force Research Laboratory’s NTS-3 satellite will test critical technologies designed to defeat the 21st century threats that contested, degraded and denied position, navigation and timing (PNT) poses to our national security.
NTS-3 will be the Department of Defense’s first experimental navigation satellite system in nearly 50 years. It builds on the legacy of NTS-1 and NTS-2, which were launched by ULA-heritage Atlas rockets in the 1970s and paved the way for today’s space-based PNT technology through the Global Positioning System (GPS).”
ULA
Rolling the Vulcan rocket to the launch pad started Monday, according to ULA’s live updates. You can follow along with the updates on ULA’s website here.
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