United Launch Alliance’s first Vulcan Centaur rocket completed a critical test-firing of its Blue Origin-built BE-4 main engines Wednesday night, clearing one of two remaining technical hurdles before the launcher is cleared for its inaugural flight later this year.
United Launch Alliance called off a test-firing of the company’s first flight-rated Vulcan Centaur rocket at Cape Canaveral Thursday to troubleshoot a problem with the booster’s engine ignition system.
United Launch Alliance’s first Vulcan rocket was filled with methane and liquid oxygen propellants at Cape Canaveral last week for a tanking test, but managers decided to move the rocket back inside a hangar for a few adjustments before proceeding with an engine test-firing.
Astrobotic, a Pittsburgh-based company developing a robotic lunar lander, will launch its first moon mission under contract to NASA on the debut flight of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket in 2021, officials announced Monday.
NASA has announced that Astrobotic, Intuitive Machines and OrbitBeyond won contracts to deliver science instruments and technology demonstration payloads to the moon’s surface in the first of a series of robotic missions preceding a human return to the moon.
In a commercial push to return to the Moon while celebrating the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, Astrobotic Technology Inc. has contracted with United Launch Alliance to use an Atlas 5 rocket to send the Peregrine lander to the lunar surface in 2019.