United Launch Alliance was supposed to fly its first national security mission on its new Vulcan rocket three years ago. It may finally begin its big game of catchup this week.

“We’re going to start flying here in just a few days — missions on Vulcan. And what is important for us to do is to hit our tempo and fly reliably and safely for our customers,” said ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno on Thursday during a call with media. “That’s our job, and we’re off to go do it.”

On what would be Vulcan’s third ever launch and first for the government flying for Space Force’s Space Systems Command, the USSF-106 mission is targeting a Tuesday liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 41 during a launch window that has yet to be announced.

Its payloads are two satellites headed for geostationary orbit. Details on one of the satellites is classified, but the other is the Navigation Technology Satellite-3, built by Melbourne-based L3Harris. It’s funded by the Air Force Research Laboratory and offers a potential replacement technology for GPS.

Vulcan, a successor to ULA’s Atlas V and Delta IV class of rockets, originally was targeting a debut as early as 2019, but faced a series of delays due to COVID, the development of brand new engines from supplier Blue Origin and an explosion on a test pad.

It finally took flight in January 2024, but has only flown once more since. Both missions were needed to gain national security certification from the Space Force. But that second flight last fall had a problem, as a solid rocket booster lost its nozzle during liftoff, and that delayed certification to nearly April of this year.

Because of the delays, ULA, a shared venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin that was formed in 2006, has a backlog in its 25 missions for the Department of Defense that were assigned to Vulcan, with several having already missed their original target launch date.

ULA was awarded the national security USSF-106 mission in 2020, one of two given that year as part of the NSSL Phase 2 contract that were both supposed to fly on Vulcan in 2022.

ULA had to switch the other mission awarded that year to one of its dwindling supply of Atlas V rockets, but even that mission didn’t take flight until two years later than originally planned, with liftoff from the Space Coast last summer.

But now ULA has an ample supply of Vulcan hardware and the OK to go from the Space Force, Bruno said.

This particular mission is confronting what will be the most demanding of government launch profiles, carrying its satellites into a direct geostationary orbit at more than 22,000 miles altitude, far higher and more difficult than the typical insertion. But the higher orbit saves the Space Force time and fuel that would have to be spent when a satellite is dropped in at a lower altitude, and then requires months to reach the ideal position.

“It is what we designed this rocket to do,” he said. “If you were picking, you might choose to start with a more plain vanilla mission. This is, in fact, the anchor case that drove the design and the architecture of the whole rocket.”

Not Getting Paid

When the government began divvying up national security launches between ULA and SpaceX back in 2000, it had stated ULA would get the lion’s share of what ended up being $8.5 billion covering nearly 50 task orders issued through 2024. Because of delays to Vulcan, though, SpaceX was given more task orders in the final year of assignments, so ULA ended up with 26 missions to SpaceX’s 22.

And since then, the Space Force has switched two of ULA’s assigned missions to SpaceX, although ULA is supposed to be given a pair of SpaceX’s assigned task orders in return at a later date.

Still, the delay in Vulcan meant ULA was not poised to cash in on the new round of national security missions that were announced earlier this year. The NSSL Phase 3 program so far has favored SpaceX for its biggest missions, known as Lane 2 missions, with $5.9 billion of an overall $13.7 billion pie to be assigned over the next five years. ULA is still set to get $5.3 billion of that while newcomer Blue Origin could get $2.4 billion once its New Glenn rocket is certified.

But ULA still has another 24 national security missions to fly from Phase 2 before it gets to its share of the more than 54 overall missions expected to be awarded through 2029. ULA has been shut out so far from a second lane of the Phase 3 contracts that is designed to bring in more companies to fly less demanding missions.

Lane 1 is expected to call for up to 30 missions to be awarded through 2029, worth another $5.6 billion. So far, all of those orders have gone to SpaceX.

The Vulcan delays have meant ULA only managed five launches in 2024 after shooting off just three in 2023. The plan, though, is to ramp up Vulcan’s pace along with the 13 remaining Atlas V rockets so ULA is hitting between 20-25 launches a year.

“When you’re a launch company, you get paid when you launch. Go figure,” Bruno said. “So as we came to the end of Vulcan development, and we had to get the rocket working, and we had an anomaly to resolve, there were fewer flights, as you guys are well aware. So revenues were much lower than our normal historical average.”

A brighter future

The company used to be the sole provider for national security missions and had its busiest year in 2009 when it flew 16 times. It’s revamping a pad at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California while also finishing work on a second vertical integration facility in Cape Canaveral so it could be processing three missions at once before the end of the year.

“As we go forward now we’re fine, and so the revenues will be more in line with what we have had in the past, and then higher next year as we jump to that 20-to-25 rate,” he said.

For 2024, Bruno said he expects to end the year with nine missions. That would include a second Space Force launch, USSF-87, which would fly from Cape Canaveral.

It also could see the first of 38 contracted Vulcan launches for Amazon’s Project Kuiper constellation as well as several more of the remaining six Atlas V launches Amazon purchased.

Other customers that could fly on Vulcan in the next year include Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser spacecraft, which is slated to make its debut launch on a cargo mission to the International Space Station.

And six of the remaining Atlas V rockets are set aside for Boeing Starliner, which could be in line to launch twice in 2026.

Bruno said the total backlog for government and commercial missions is about 100, looking five years out.

“For this year, ’25, we’re fully booked up. And ’26 it’s pretty crowded. Someone would have to drop out of line in order for us to make a slot for someone else,” he said. “As we go into ’27 it’s really the same story. So we’re in that good problem to have of having more customers wanting to ride on this rocket than is easy to accommodate.”