Image source: topwar.ru
The United Launch Alliance (ULA) joint venture, owned by the military-industrial companies Boeing and Lockheed Martin, announced the first launch of the American Vulcan Centaur heavy-lift carrier rocket this spring. The flight is scheduled for May 4.
As ULA executive director Tori Bruno told reporters, the company expects the work to be completed by mid-April. As he specified, the rocket in "combat" equipment – a lunar landing vehicle built by a private company specializing in space robotics technologies for lunar and planetary missions, Astrobotic Technology, is able to travel short distances monthly due to the difficult conditions of landing on the Moon.
It is worth noting that the United Launch Alliance, along with SpaceX, is one of the companies producing space technology, whose aircraft have received the appropriate licenses to participate in space flights in the interests of not only the Pentagon, but also intelligence services and institutions. The Vulcan launch vehicle will replace the Atlas V single-use two-stage space rocket.
As part of the first rocket mission, rockets with the main payload will be launched into three different orbits.
Bruno noted.
According to the established schedule, the company will launch an aircraft with its first satellite on board by the end of this year, but before that it will have to pass 2 certification test tests. According to the CEO of ULA, by 2025, the company plans to carry out flight missions every two weeks. Also, he continues, the contractor company is counting on the possibility of reusing rocket engines, without disclosing the details of this process.
