Number of flights of Vulcan in 2026?

[Tywin]

Ok big year for Vulcan, with many military flights and Kuipersat, what number do we think, they will launch?

[ZachS09]

Blind guess of 10.

[DanClemmensen]

I will wait to vote until early December. My current problem is that I don't understand why they are not launching at least once a month already, just using the current VIF (to be rechristened VIF-G). From all outside reports they have the rockets and the government payloads are waiting in storage. On top of that we have no outside reports of a reason the Kuipers are not being launched faster. I cannot make a guesstimate until I have a plausible explanation of the current bottlenecks and how and when they will be relieved. If the bottlenecks magically went away,  the pad should be able to handle about three times a month, but this includes five Atlas V in 2026.

[catdlr]

this includes five Atlas V in 2026.

That's the bottleneck.  One pad, two rockets, one VIF, and one VIC.  Retrofit. Once the Atlas is done, it will pick up.

[DanClemmensen]

this includes five Atlas V in 2026.

That's the bottleneck.  One pad, two rockets, one VIF, and one VIC.  Retrofit. Once the Atlas is done, it will pick up.

By January, they are supposed to have VIF A operational, and by itself it is supposed to support almost two launches a month.

[catdlr]

this includes five Atlas V in 2026.

That's the bottleneck.  One pad, two rockets, one VIF, and one VIC.  Retrofit. Once the Atlas is done, it will pick up.

By January, they are supposed to have VIF A operational, and by itself it is supposed to support almost two launches a month.

Well, it's the mobile train.  The original plan was to convert the second to support the Vulcan, but as launches got delayed, ULA decided to build a new one to support Vulcan. I don't know how far along it is. I've seen shots of it in construction. Once that's completed, then more breathing room.

[AmigaClone]

this includes five Atlas V in 2026.

That's the bottleneck.  One pad, two rockets, one VIF, and one VIC.  Retrofit. Once the Atlas is done, it will pick up.

I suspect that at least part of the bottleneck is within the locations involved in producing the payloads for Vulcan missions. In other words, at this time, perhaps the biggest bottleneck is the lack of payloads ready to launch.

Having said that, I can see ULA launching more times in 2026 than it has on average per year in the past 15 years.

[DanClemmensen]

this includes five Atlas V in 2026.

That's the bottleneck.  One pad, two rockets, one VIF, and one VIC.  Retrofit. Once the Atlas is done, it will pick up.

I suspect that at least part of the bottleneck is within the locations involved in producing the payloads for Vulcan missions. In other words, at this time, perhaps the biggest bottleneck is the lack of payloads ready to launch.

Kuiper announced that their dedicated payload processing facility at the cape can process and encapsulate up to 100 satellites a month and can operate on at least two payloads simultaneously. The output of this facility is stacked payloads in their fairings. That's enough for two Vulcans per month. This is separate from Whatever ULA and the  government customers can do with the NSSL satellites that are alleged to be "ready for launch and sitting in storage".  Given this, my poorly-informed estimate is that payload readiness is not on the critical path.

[sstli2]

I will wait to vote until early December. My current problem is that I don't understand why they are not launching at least once a month already, just using the current VIF (to be rechristened VIF-G). From all outside reports they have the rockets and the government payloads are waiting in storage. On top of that we have no outside reports of a reason the Kuipers are not being launched faster. I cannot make a guesstimate until I have a plausible explanation of the current bottlenecks and how and when they will be relieved. If the bottlenecks magically went away,  the pad should be able to handle about three times a month, but this includes five Atlas V in 2026.

I agree with this. I voted 10. But 10 makes no sense. If VIF-A and the second MLP are working as intended, there really should be at least 1 Vulcan launch every month out of VIF-A, and at least 6 out of VIF-G (Atlas Vs taking up the rest of the time). That's 18.

But I don't think it makes sense to vote for 18 until I understand whether the increase in cadence that the second VIF/MIP is supposed to bring about will materialize. Normally, I would be optimistic about this, but it's now November and this still hasn't happened, and I don't know yet why.

[leeloodallasmultipass]

I said 13, because infrastructure is coming online finally. 2 hangars east, 1 pad west. I am not optimistic about ULA in general but 13 is doable.

[DanClemmensen]

OK, I went ahead and voted for 20. This is my optimistic vote. I'm assuming that by the end of 2026 they will have worked out all of their operations protocols and will be launching about 3 per month using both VIFs. I think they will launch five Atlas V, so a total of 25 launches.

Their most recent launch-to-launch turnaround was just over one month, from one VIF, both Atlas V, so I'm hoping that they can improve that and also overlap stacking in VIF-A and VIF-G,

In addition to all the other challenges, two of the Atlas launches are Starliner. These have a relatively high potential for various additional delays and possibly longer stacking times.