Will be the Vulcan the more reliable rocket of ULA in her history?

[whitelancer64]

*snip*
Unless something unexpected happens, Atlas V will finally retire after 116 launches. It is unclear that Vulcan will ever fly 116 times.

Vulcan does currently have 70 launch contracts on the books.

[DanClemmensen]

*snip*
Unless something unexpected happens, Atlas V will finally retire after 116 launches. It is unclear that Vulcan will ever fly 116 times.

Vulcan does currently have 70 launch contracts on the books.

I hope Vulcan is both technically and financially successful. I was not trying to cast aspersions, just to understand. That's why I said "unclear".

I know about the 38 Kuipers, and we can speculate about 60% of up to 34 NSSL launches (i.e., up to 21), plus the two certification flights(peregrine and Dream Chaser), and apparently six more Dream Chasers. What are the other three?

To reach 116 launches, Vulcan will need ongoing flights, but the bulk of the booked flights are Kuiper, and Kuiper is supposed to migrate to New Glenn after those 38 flights. That's a big hole to fill. The NSSL cadence for ULA is historically about 4/year, and the Dream chasers will be maybe 1/yr, so Vulcan will need a big new customer. ULA's current total launch rate is about 8/yr. If we subtract out the Kuipers, we need an additional 78 launches. at 8/yr.this is less than a decade, so we will perhaps know the answer to this poll before 2032 

[whitelancer64]

*snip*
Unless something unexpected happens, Atlas V will finally retire after 116 launches. It is unclear that Vulcan will ever fly 116 times.

Vulcan does currently have 70 launch contracts on the books.

I hope Vulcan is both technically and financially successful. I was not trying to cast aspersions, just to understand. That's why I said "unclear".

I know about the 38 Kuipers, and we can speculate about 60% of up to 34 NSSL launches (i.e., up to 21), plus the two certification flights(peregrine and Dream Chaser), and apparently six more Dream Chasers. What are the other three?

To reach 116 launches, Vulcan will need ongoing flights, but the bulk of the booked flights are Kuiper, and Kuiper is supposed to migrate to New Glenn after those 38 flights. That's a big hole to fill. The NSSL cadence for ULA is historically about 4/year, and the Dream chasers will be maybe 1/yr, so Vulcan will need a big new customer. ULA's current total launch rate is about 8/yr. If we subtract out the Kuipers, we need an additional 78 launches. at 8/yr.this is less than a decade, so we will perhaps know the answer to this poll before 2032 

https://twitter.com/torybruno/status/1539714940897984514

[c4fusion]

*snip*
Unless something unexpected happens, Atlas V will finally retire after 116 launches. It is unclear that Vulcan will ever fly 116 times.

Vulcan does currently have 70 launch contracts on the books.

I hope Vulcan is both technically and financially successful. I was not trying to cast aspersions, just to understand. That's why I said "unclear".

I know about the 38 Kuipers, and we can speculate about 60% of up to 34 NSSL launches (i.e., up to 21), plus the two certification flights(peregrine and Dream Chaser), and apparently six more Dream Chasers. What are the other three?

To reach 116 launches, Vulcan will need ongoing flights, but the bulk of the booked flights are Kuiper, and Kuiper is supposed to migrate to New Glenn after those 38 flights. That's a big hole to fill. The NSSL cadence for ULA is historically about 4/year, and the Dream chasers will be maybe 1/yr, so Vulcan will need a big new customer. ULA's current total launch rate is about 8/yr. If we subtract out the Kuipers, we need an additional 78 launches. at 8/yr.this is less than a decade, so we will perhaps know the answer to this poll before 2032 

https://twitter.com/torybruno/status/1539714940897984514

I think the question is what is the breakdown of of those 70 flights, which is a valid question that I want to know too.

The other question to ask is will Relativity, Firefly, and/or Rocketlab be viable enough with their next launcher in the next five years to pose enough of a threat to make getting the next 40 or so launches a near impossibility as low of a chance that is.

[Jim]

The other question to ask is will Relativity, Firefly, and/or Rocketlab be viable enough with their next launcher in the next five years to pose enough of a threat to make getting the next 40 or so launches a near impossibility as low of a chance that is.

they are not in the same market

[TrevorMonty]

The other question to ask is will Relativity, Firefly, and/or Rocketlab be viable enough with their next launcher in the next five years to pose enough of a threat to make getting the next 40 or so launches a near impossibility as low of a chance that is.

they are not in the same market

They will compete for high volume constellation launches plus large part of government missions which both Vulcan and  F9R are over sized for.

[c4fusion]

The other question to ask is will Relativity, Firefly, and/or Rocketlab be viable enough with their next launcher in the next five years to pose enough of a threat to make getting the next 40 or so launches a near impossibility as low of a chance that is.

they are not in the same market

They will compete for high volume constellation launches plus large part of government missions which both Vulcan and  F9R are over sized for.

And Terran R seems to be large enough to compete in mostly the same market since it has a higher throw weight than Falcon 9 in reuse mode.

[Jim]

The other question to ask is will Relativity, Firefly, and/or Rocketlab be viable enough with their next launcher in the next five years to pose enough of a threat to make getting the next 40 or so launches a near impossibility as low of a chance that is.

they are not in the same market

They will compete for high volume constellation launches plus large part of government missions which both Vulcan and  F9R are over sized for.

The other question to ask is will Relativity, Firefly, and/or Rocketlab be viable enough with their next launcher in the next five years to pose enough of a threat to make getting the next 40 or so launches a near impossibility as low of a chance that is.

they are not in the same market

They will compete for high volume constellation launches plus large part of government missions which both Vulcan and  F9R are over sized for.

And Terran R seems to be large enough to compete in mostly the same market since it has a higher throw weight than Falcon 9 in reuse mode.

They still are not in the same market

[Vahe231991]

Since seven Vulcan launches have been contracted for launch of the Dream Chaser spaceplane, the Vulcan could potentially become as reliable a ULA-built rocket as the Atlas V when it comes to launching miniature spaceplanes into orbit, since five of the six X-37B missions have been lofted into orbit by the Atlas V.

[Jim]

Since seven Vulcan launches have been contracted for launch of the Dream Chaser spaceplane, the Vulcan could potentially become as reliable a ULA-built rocket as the Atlas V when it comes to launching miniature spaceplanes into orbit, since five of the six X-37B missions have been lofted into orbit by the Atlas V.

That makes no sense.
A.  They are spaceplanes.   By what standard are they miniature?
b.  The fact that they are spaceplanes is irrelevant since they are inside fairings and are no different than other spacecraft
c.  Launching spaceplanes successfully doesn't mean a rocket is more reliable.

[bad_astra]

We have no baseline to go off of, in regards to 1st stage so I really can't answer the poll. But if it can't match the flight rate of Falcon 9 and New Glenn I think it will be a ULA's shortest lived booster.

[TrevorMonty]

We have no baseline to go off of, in regards to 1st stage so I really can't answer the poll. But if it can't match the flight rate of Falcon 9 and New Glenn I think it will be a ULA's shortest lived booster.

Never going match F9 flightrate as most of its missions are Starlink. Good chance it will better NG.

[AmigaClone]

We have no baseline to go off of, in regards to 1st stage so I really can't answer the poll. But if it can't match the flight rate of Falcon 9 and New Glenn I think it will be a ULA's shortest lived booster.

The poll is comparing Vulcan with other ULA rockets - not those of other providers.

Among the rockets ULA has launched (in other words not including any Delta II, Delta IV, or Atlas V launched before 1 December 2006), there has been one single case of a partial launch failure where the payload was left in a lower than intended orbit.

Technically, a rocket might be considered more reliable than another if it has the same number of partial and complete failures over more launch attempts. By that definition, Vulcan-Centaur would be considered more reliable than a single stick Delta IV with 26 successful launches, and more successful than the Delta II if it has more 30 successful launches.

On the other hand, unless (until?) ULA develops another orbital launch vehicle, the Vulcan would retain the record of most successful ULA developed even if it has a RUD before clearing the launch tower.

As for the source of any failures, I suspect that the most likely cause would be something going wrong on the first stage.

[trimeta]

They still are not in the same market

Again, why not? They'll be competing for constellation launches, they'll be competing for monolithic commercial launches, they'll even be competing for government launches (recall Peter Beck's recent comments about hoping that NSSL Phase 3 allows for companies which can't hit all nine reference orbits, plus expendable Terran R may be able to hit all nine anyway).

Sure, there will be a handful of launches which use the full power of Vulcan and can't be flown on (for example) Neutron, but that's not the entirety of Vulcan's market, if it's only winning those launches it won't hit 100.