Dream Chaser dropped from next Vulcan launch as ULA targets national security certification

United Launch Alliance made it official Wednesday. Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser spacecraft won’t be flying on the next Vulcan Centaur launch as ULA seeks national security certification of its new rocket.

The Vulcan first-stage powered by two Blue Origin-made BE-4 engines and the Centaur upper stage that will be used on the Certification-2 mission arrived this week to Cape Canaveral by ship and ULA plans to fly them in early September.

Originally, Dream Chaser, which is supposed to fly cargo on its first mission to the International Space Station, was lined up to fly on Cert-2, but it’s not likely to be ready by then, so ULA announced a pivot.

“We have been informed by Sierra Space that they feel they have significant risk toward making the flight dates,” said ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno on a media call Wednesday noting that the Cert-2 launch date had already been delayed from what was supposed to be before July. “They have told us that they will step aside in order to support our critical national security space missions.”

Just when Dream Chaser will fly is undetermined, but because of ULA obligations and only three Vulcan rockets expected to be complete before the end of the year, it will likely need to slip to 2025.

After Vulcan’s Cert-2 flight, ULA has two missions that are supposed to launch on Vulcan before the end of 2024 for the Space Force. Those are part of 26 missions worth $3.1 billion under National Security Space Launch (NSSL) contracts that are already two years behind schedule. Originally all 26, all to be flown by 2027, were slated for Vulcan, but delays in the rocket’s debut already forced at least one to switch to an Atlas V.

And Vulcan cannot fly any NSSL missions until ULA completes a second certification flight of the rocket. Vulcan flew for the first time in January on Cetification-1. That mission launched Astrobotic Technology’s Peregrine lunar lander.

For Cert-2, since ULA isn’t flying its planned payload, it will instead fly an inert mass simulator — basically a dummy payload, something ULA had already prepped for Cert-1 in case Astrobotic was delayed.

“It is devoid of any government funding,” Bruno said of the mission cost. “I don’t want to say the number but I’ll tell you, it’s in the high 10s of millions. It’s real money.”

The flight will also take up some scientific experiments, Bruno said, and the mission will take advantage of the Centaur upper stage’s time in space with some added maneuvers incorporated into the timeline to test the Centaur’s limits.

“You hate to waste a rocket flight, you know? It’s not a waste, because you’ve got to do the Cert-2 mission in order to work with the Space Force,” Bruno said. “We’ve been planning this for a while to be honest with you, just in case.”

The Centaur stage will then be sent to what is essentially a high-orbit space junkyard.

While the government’s certification process involves more testing and a wet dress rehearsal on the ground, which will begin in August, the launch demands will be a repeat essentially of what Vulcan achieved in January that could lead to quick approval of the rocket.

“I don’t want to answer specifically on behalf of the Space Force, but I can tell you that we’ve coordinated the plan,” Bruno said. “Because we’ve already flown once and the mission was so very clean, and they’ve been able to look at all of that data since January, in a way the report is drafted. And all they really have to do is receive the data from us with the analysis we also provide to them, and kind of go down the list and say, ‘Yep, that’s what we expected.’ … So it’ll turn pretty quickly and there is plenty of time to fly two more times before the end of the year.”

That would line up the USSF-106 and USSF-87 missions on two more Vulcan rockets that are being finished up at ULA’s factory in Decatur, Alabama.

“I’m going to ship a Vulcan in August down to the Cape, and then I’ll ship the next one right after that,” Bruno said. “So I’ll have the rockets. All I need are satellites and I should be able to fly.”

Blue Origin has already delivered the four remaining BE-4 engines for those two flights, and is now working on production of engines for its own heavy lift rocket New Glenn that is expected to make its first flight also from Cape Canaveral before the end of the year.

“Blue is now building the same engine in a slightly different configuration for their own rocket,” Bruno said. “This was planned ahead of time, and (Blue Origin CEO) Dave Limp committed to us. He’d take care of us first and then take care of that delivery, and then come back to us. So I’ll start receiving engines not very far from now, again for the manifest that occurs in (2025).”

ULA’s first NSSL mission in 2025 from Florida isn’t expected until closer to March, so Bruno expects to have all the hardware including engines in hand and ready.

“Blue has been a long hold previously because it took them just a little bit longer to get this new kind of methane-based, very large rocket motor through development,” Bruno said. “But it is through and they are wrapping up their factory right now … I have a great deal more confidence in Blue’s ability to meet our needs.”

Bruno said ULA still expects to complete eight launches in 2024. It has so far flown three: the first Vulcan flight in January, the final Delta IV Heavy in April and this month’s launch at an Atlas V with Boeing’s CFT-100 Starliner. Next up before August will be another Atlas V on the USSF-51 flight for the Space Force, the details of which have yet to be announced.

Then would follow Cert-2 and the 2 USSF missions on Vulcan, which would leave one more Atlas V rocket launch slated for 2024. That could be the first for Amazon’s Project Kuiper, with Amazon stating they expect to fly up their first of their operational satellites before the end of the year. The satellites would be the first of a 3,236- satellite constellation designed to compete with the likes of SpaceX’s Starlink.

Amazon bought nine of ULA’s remaining Atlas V rockets and so far has only flown up two test versions in late 2023. Amazon is also awaiting Vulcan rockets, on which it bought an additional 38 launches as part of flights on Blue Origin’s New Glenn and Arianespace’s new Ariane 6 in an effort to send up half of the constellation by July 31, 2026 as part of its license from the Federal Communications Commission.

With more than 70 Vulcan flights on the books, ULA has decided also to speed up construction of a second Vertical Integration Facility (VIF) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Originally planned for completion by June 2025, it is now expected to be finished by March.

Once online, ULA plans to keep its original VIF to support primarily government missions as well as its remaining Atlas V launches while the new VIF will be for commercial Vulcan flights. It’s also working on switching out its Atlas V launch site in California to support Vulcan launches, including two NSSL missions slated in 2025, Bruno said.

And while concerns on supply have been driving ULA in the last few years, Bruno said the company is now lined up for success.

“Fabrication is rockin’ and rollin’ and Blue is delivering on their commitments to us now having gotten through development, so feeling really good about that,” he said.