ULA rocket is in BIG TROUBLE “EXPLOSION”, Elon Musk reacts…
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ULA rocket is in BIG TROUBLE “EXPLOSION”, Elon Musk reacts…
On the evening of March 29, at Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, United Launch Alliance started pressurizing the upper stage of its new Vulcan rocket. But then, suddenly, something went wrong with this Centaur’s upper stage.
Shortly after the incident, to his credit, the chief executive of United Launch Alliance, Tory Bruno, was quick to acknowledge on Twitter that something had happened: “Keeping you posted: During Qual testing of Centaur V structural article at MSFC, the hardware experienced an anomaly.”
Unpacking this tweet a little bit, Bruno is saying that during qualification testing—the process of testing rocket engines and stages on the ground to determine their behavior during flight-like conditions—the Centaur stage had a problem. More than a week later, however, there are more questions than answers about the accident.
Notably, even SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reacted to this.
So, what exactly happened to ULA Vulcan Centaur’s upper stage?
Will this push back the vehicle’s first test flight?
Find out everything about this in today’s episode of Alpha Tech:
United Launch Alliance finally took delivery of the main engines for the Vulcan rocket, two BE-4 engines built by Blue Origin, during the fall of 2022. Since then, the company bolted these engines onto Vulcan’s core stage and shipped this vehicle and its Centaur upper stage from its factory in Alabama to the launch site.
This hardware is undergoing pre-launch processing, after which Vulcan will be put through a series of flight readiness verification tests. This includes multiple tanking tests and a wet dress rehearsal, culminating in an engine flight readiness firing. “We will set a launch date following successful completion of the flight readiness tests,” United Launch Alliance spokesperson Jessica Rye announced.
ULA rocket is in BIG TROUBLE “EXPLOSION”, Elon Musk reacts…
