ULA's Vulcan Centaur Rocket Completes 2nd Certification Flight with Minor Glitch

TapTechNews October 5th news, the tech media Space released a blog post yesterday (October 4th), reporting that the latest Vulcan Centaur (VulcanCentaur) rocket of the United Launch Alliance (ULA) successfully completed the 2nd certification flight (CERT-2).

As the successor of the Atlas V rocket, the Vulcan Centaur was launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base in Florida at 7:25 am Eastern Time (TapTechNews note: 19:25 on October 4th, Beijing time) to complete the key CERT-2 flight mission.

However, during this period, there was a small episode. About 35 seconds after the launch, an abnormality occurred in one of the solid rocket boosters (SRB). It can be observed from the picture that some substances fell off from the booster, and the shape of the ejected flame also changed, but the official still announced the success of this mission.

This mission is of great significance. It not only fully demonstrates the various performances of the rocket, but also lays the foundation for obtaining the certification of the US Space Force, so that it can undertake the launch mission of national security payloads in the future.

VulcanCentaur is a two-stage orbital launch vehicle designed specifically for efficient launches. Its design purpose is to replace the old ULA rocket Atlas V and provide stronger launch capabilities.

VulcanCentaur's design can send a payload of 27.2 tons into the near-Earth orbit, or about 15.3 tons of payload into the geosynchronous transfer orbit.

The full height of this rocket is 61.6 meters, and the diameter of the fairing is 5.4 meters, which is significantly larger than the 3.66 meters of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. This design enables VulcanCentaur to carry larger satellites or other spacecraft.

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