Vulcan Launch Vehicle Joins U.S. National Security Space Launch Fleet

Faced with competition from SpaceX and a ban on buying Russian rocket engines, United Launch Alliance staked its future more than a decade ago on a new launch vehicle to serve U.S. national security agencies—its primary customers at the time.

The new rocket, named the Vulcan, debuted in January 2024, but it took another 19 months of work and a second flight before United Launch Alliance (ULA) was cleared to launch a national security space mission. ULA, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, fulfilled its longtime goal on Aug. 12, opening a new chapter in U.S. space access.

• The Space Force regains access to two rockets for national security missions
• Work is underway to certify the heavy-lift Vulcan variant

Built to replace ULA’s Atlas V and Delta IV rockets, the Vulcan was designed to launch the Defense Department’s most challenging missions, including deploying payloads directly into geosynchronous Earth (GEO) orbit, as was demonstrated during the recent USSF-106 mission.

For the U.S. Space Force, that was a turning point. “We officially end our reliance on Russian-made main engines with this launch,” Col. James Horne, Space Launch Delta 30 commander and USSF-106 mission director, told reporters during a prelaunch press conference.

Congress banned Russian-made rocket engines for U.S. military missions as part of trade sanctions enacted following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014. The ban directly affected ULA’s workhorse Atlas V, which uses a first stage powered by the Russian NPO Energomash RD-180 engine. Congress capped the number of engines ULA could import to complete its U.S. military launch manifest. The last Atlas V to launch a national security mission lifted off on July 30, 2024, leaving SpaceX as the military’s sole National Security Space Launch (NSSL) provider for more than a year.

U.S. reliance on the RD-180 originated in a different geopolitical era. In the 1990s, the Pentagon sought to modernize its space launch capabilities through a new expendable launch vehicle program, leveraging innovations from both industry and foreign partners.

Trade agreements encouraging U.S.-Russia space coordination led to Pratt & Whitney securing exclusive rights in 1997 to sell and produce NPO Energomash’s RD-180 through a joint venture, RD Amross, and to establish a U.S. production line by 1998. But the domestic production line never materialized due to cost concerns and schedule delays.

Lockheed Martin used the engine to develop the Atlas V under the military’s Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program. While the Atlas V and ULA’s Delta IV family of vehicles became workhorses for U.S. military launches, RD-180 dependence eventually became a liability the U.S. could not afford.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, importing Russian rocket engines became unacceptable for both U.S. military and commercial launchers. ULA had already revamped its entire business to address the ban and reduce costs, helping it compete better with SpaceX and other launch providers.

Toward that goal, ULA retired its exquisite but expensive Delta IV booster, which did not use Russian engines. The company has 13 Atlas V rockets remaining: six were purchased by Amazon for Kuiper satellite launches, six by Boeing for Starliner missions to the International Space Station (ISS) and one by ViaSat.

ULA now buys U.S.-made engines for the Vulcan from Blue Origin. The 2022 ban sidelined Northrop Grumman’s use of Russian RD-181 engines for its Antares rocket, which is used to launch Cygnus cargo ships to the ISS for NASA. Northrop turned to U.S. startup Firefly Aerospace for a new Antares engine.

Eleven years after Congress first moved to eliminate the RD-180, the Space Force can now call on both the Vulcan and SpaceX’s Falcon rockets for NSSL missions. A third offering, Blue Origin’s New Glenn heavy-launch vehicle, is undergoing certification. Its second demonstration launch is planned for Sept. 29.

For its first NSSL mission, ULA’s Vulcan lifted off at 8:56 p.m. EDT on Aug. 12 from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral SFS. The multimanifest mission included a satellite experiment developed by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and L3Harris Technologies as well as an undisclosed payload. With a direct injection to GEO, it showcased the very purpose of the Vulcan: supporting “exotic orbits” primarily used by the U.S. government, ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno told reporters Aug. 7.

The first stage is designed to boost payloads up to two or three times the altitude and velocity of comparable rockets and precisely deliver the upper stage to its desired orbit “already in space and still full of propellant,” Bruno noted.

It also marked the first Vulcan launch using four strap-on solid rocket boosters instead of two, the configuration flown during two certification flights on Jan. 8 and Oct. 4, 2024. During the second flight, a nozzle on one of the solid rocket boosters detached, causing a loss of thrust and a slight reduction in total impulse. Despite the anomaly, the Vulcan nailed its target orbit, but the incident and a subsequent investigation delayed its NSSL certification until March 26, 2025.

ULA anticipates at least nine more missions this year using both Vulcan and Atlas vehicles, pending unforeseen schedule changes, Bruno said. It had earlier forecast more 2025 missions, but delays in the Vulcan’s NSSL certification pushed its start later into this year. At least two Space Force missions for GPS III satellites, initially slated for the Vulcan, were ultimately launched by SpaceX.

The company plans to ramp up to two launches per month by year-end and sustain that tempo through 2027. Bruno said the company is targeting 25 or 26 missions annually in the next two years, with a 60-40 split between commercial and government customers.

The six-booster Vulcan variant remains to be certified. It will debut carrying 45 satellites for Amazon’s Kuiper constellation to low Earth orbit, which is expected by late 2025, Bruno said. That launch will count toward the “Heavy” version’s certification, but further Space Force analysis and review will be required, Horne said.