America's Oldest Rocket Company Successfully Test Fires Powerful New Rocket

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The United Launch Alliance (ULA) test-fired its Vulcan heavy lift rocket earlier today at 9:05 pm local time at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The test was a full vehicle tanking and engine fire test, which ULA calls the Flight Readiness Firing. This test aimed to evaluate the rocket's engines and tanks to ensure all systems run smoothly. Today's test took place after quite a wait, as ULA teams dealt with a lighting event and had to evaluate the rocket's software and hardware to ensure that it was still a 'go' for launch. The Vulcan rocket is a special one in ULA's history, as it is the first rocket the firm has designed in its history, despite having conducted more than a hundred launches.

The test's mission director gave the go-ahead for launch roughly eight minutes before launch that saw the team confirm that the numerous systems on board were ready for the firing. However, even after this, the teams continued monitoring the rocket to ensure the vehicle's tanks were at the correct pressure. Once these status checks were finished, the final go-ahead for the FRF was given.

Today's test was crucial, particularly for the Vulcan's engines. These are the only components of the rocket that have not flown a mission to space before. Like NASA's SLS rocket, the Vulcan leverages existing flight hardware design to reduce development and testing timelines. Some of its components, such as the RL-10 engines on the second stage and the aluminum tanks, will have flown more than a hundred times when the rocket achieves its early launch capability.

Since it was just a small test to ensure that the different components of the Vulcan's propulsion systems were in working condition, the test lasted for a brief seven seconds – in stark comparison to the two-hour wait ushered in due to the lightning.

The test started with the rocket's outward firing ignitors (ROFIS) firing up. Two seconds later, the start command to the engines was sent. Two seconds after that, the engines started and then throttled down to test their shut-down capability for an actual launch. This shutdown occurs once a rocket has finished the primary portion of its ascent journey and its second stage is ready to take over.

Immediately after the BE-4 engines shut down, Mr. Bruno confirmed that the test was nominal - rocket speak for all events without a hiccup. ULA's vice president of Vulcan development, Mr. Mark Peller, shared how important the test was for Vulcan development on the road to launch:

This is a huge milestone. This is as close as you can come to launching a rocket without actually launching a rocket. So, complete integrated test of all the airborne elements, the ground systems, all coming together, putting it through everything that we would in a normal day of launch, obviously up to including actually starting the main engines. Everything short of releasing the rocket. So significant developments, really signifying significant progress, Our last major milestone on the path to launch. So, big accomplishment.

Today's certification test is one among a series of several ones that have taken place this year in America as part of a cadre of rockets central to the new-age space industry. Vulcan's BE-4 engines are made by Blue Origin, which has its own New Glenn heavy-lift rocket. At the same time, NASA's SLS has flown, and the agency has conducted multiple test firings of its upgraded engines. Not to mention, SpaceX's Starship rocket - which aims to be the largest in the world - is also under development in Boca Chica, Texas, awaiting its second flight test after a spectacular show in April. ULA is a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin's space divisions and traces its roots back to the 1960s spaceflight programs.

You can recap the successful certification test below: