The United States Space Force on Wednesday revealed that it has actually licensed United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket to perform nationwide security objectives.

“Assured access to space is a core function of the Space Force and a critical element of national security,” stated Brig. Gen. Panzenhagen, program executive officer for Assured Access to Space, in a press release. “Vulcan certification adds launch capacity, resiliency, and flexibility needed by our nation’s most critical space-based systems.”

The official statement closes a yearslong procedure that has actually seen numerous hold-ups in the advancement of the Vulcan rocket, in addition to 2 abnormalities recently that were a more obstacle to accreditation.

The very first of these, a surge on a test stand in northern Alabama throughout the spring of 2023, postponed the very first test flight of Vulcan by numerous months. In October 2024, throughout the 2nd test flight of the rocket, a nozzle on one of the Vulcan’s 2 side-mounted boosters stopped working.

A troublesome procedure

This nozzle problem, more than 5 months earlier, intensified the substantial documents required to accredit Vulcan for the United States Department of Defense’s many delicate objectives. The armed force has numerous alternatives for business to accredit their rockets depending upon the variety of flights finished, which might be 2, 3, or more. The less the flights, the more documentation and evaluation that should be done. For Vulcan, this procedure involved:

• 52 accreditation requirements
• more than 180 discrete jobs
• 2 accreditation flight presentations
• 60 payload user interface requirement confirmations
• 18 subsystem style and test evaluations
• 114 software and hardware audits

That seems like a great deal of work, however a minimum of the armed force’s guidelines and policies are uncomplicated and easy to browse, Anyhow, the accreditation procedure is total, raising United Launch Alliance to fly nationwide security objectives along with SpaceX with its fleet of Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.