Overview
- United Launch Alliance announced on Oct. 28 that Vulcan is set to lift off Nov. 13 from Cape Canaveral carrying 40 Amazon Leo satellites, pending range approval.
- The rocket will fly with six strap-on solid rocket boosters, an extended payload fairing, and a shortened Centaur upper stage configured for low-Earth orbit deployments.
- ULA and Northrop Grumman say the flight will use a redesigned SRB nozzle and process changes intended to address nozzle failures that appeared on earlier Vulcan missions, though no single root cause has been publicly confirmed.
- The U.S. Space Force will gather and analyze telemetry from this commercial mission and subsequent Vulcan flights before clearing the vehicle to return to national-security missions, and several military launches have already been moved to SpaceX to preserve schedules.
- Vulcan’s return matters because the rocket was certified for national-security launches in 2025 and is a key launch provider for Pentagon and commercial constellations, so flight validation now will shape launch plans, contractor workloads, and satellite rollout timelines.