Overview
- The Vulcan Centaur, which is set to lift off Friday, Nov. 13 at 12:54 p.m. EST from Cape Canaveral, is carrying 40 Amazon Leo broadband satellites destined for a roughly 450 km parking orbit.
- The flight uses a revised GEM-63XL solid rocket booster nozzle that ULA, Northrop Grumman and the Space Force redesigned after earlier burn-through and nozzle liberation events were traced in part to failed internal insulators.
- Northrop Grumman test-fired the enhanced GEM-63XL at its Promontory, Utah facility and ULA implemented design, manufacturing and process fixes that will be evaluated by collecting in-flight telemetry on this mission.
- The U.S. Space Force suspended national-security Vulcan launches after the February observation of a nozzle issue, and officials will use the data from this commercial flight to decide when to resume Pentagon and crewed missions on Vulcan.
- If the launch succeeds, ULA can ramp up a planned high cadence of Vulcan launches for Amazon Leo, which has up to 38 Vulcan missions booked and is building capacity at a dedicated Vertical Integration Facility; another anomaly would likely extend restrictions and force customers to shift launches.