ULA Wants to Make Its Rocket ‘Lethal’ to Defend U.S. Assets in Space

The 200-foot Vulcan Center rocket can do more than launch satellites into orbit. As the rocket awaits certification to launch military payloads, the United Launch Alliance (ULA) suggests Vulcan be used to repel space enemies and protect US assets in orbit. can also be used to

During the SpacePower conference held earlier this month, ULA CEO Tori Bruno published That was an alternative plan for its heavy-lift launch vehicle, SpaceNews Report. Bruno’s suggestion included using the rocket’s upper stage as a “space interceptor” to repel attacks against US Space Force assets in space. “Our vision is the ability to have a platform that is lightning fast, long range and very lethal when needed,” he said during the conference. “What I’m working on is basically a rocket that works in space.”

Well, it’s certainly an idea. The 202-foot-tall (61.6-meter) Vulcan Centaur is an expendable heavy-lift launch vehicle first envisioned in 2006. The rocket borrows design elements from both ULA’s Atlas V and Delta IV rockets and finally debuted in January. 8, turn on Astrobotic’s Peregrine Lander to the Moon. The rocket had its inaugural flight Basically determined was to take place in 2019, but Vulcan faced several challenges and hiccups that delayed its big day.

Vulcan Centaur is critical to the commercial space industry as well as US national security. With its Vulcan rocket, ULA hopes to compete with industry favorite SpaceX. The US military has grown more dependent SpaceX to launch its payload into orbit, a market share that was dominated by ULA.

However, the Vulcan is not yet ready to launch military payloads. The Rocket made his second run Certification Flight In October, however, ULA’s marquee flight vehicle hit a snag. Following a nominal liftoff, the rocket experienced A problem occurred about 35 seconds into launch, when a plume of material suddenly erupted from one of its two boosters.

The Cert-2 mission was originally intended to certify the Vulcan for the US Space Force’s national security mission, with the rocket carrying two US military payloads into orbit this year. The non-ideal flight delayed the rocket’s certification process.

Bruno’s recent suggestion to turn the rocket into a space superhero may be an act of desperation as ULA falls behind its main competitor, SpaceX. During the conference, the ULA CEO suggested that the Vulcan’s upper stage could be upgraded to serve as a long-endurance vehicle that operates in space and responds quickly to incoming threats.

“We know the Chinese are going to come after us in space,” Bruno said, according to SpaceNews. “If we see an attack where a Chinese asset is spending a few days or a week on something that we care about, we have something that we can get there in a few hours and intercept the attack before it starts.”

Mentioning China’s growing capabilities in space is one way to get people behind your plans. Still, Bruno’s comments reflect a larger concern shared by both national and commercial spaceflight players: that space is moving toward a militarized future in which orbital warfare may be inevitable.