Vulcan Centaur now weeks away from launch! But is ULA already too late?

ULA has resumed final testing on Vulcan Centaur! But how many hurdles still need to be jumped? And, given the crucial nature of Vulcan's first payloads, what if ULA experiences an anomaly on their first launch?
#space #nasa #spacex

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[jameslellouche]

Thanks Angry Astronaut for your dialy reports. Its is amazing that you can provide so many videos and keep always so interesting and professional. STAY ANGRY ABOUT SPACE.

[dillonbledsoe]

Thank God we have Angry without him I don't know if we have a space program

[stephensfarms]

There is no reuse of stage I, too expensive and is expendable. ULA, is always late. Never buy engines from your competitor. SpaceX is a better rocket 🚀

[psycotria]

"SpaceX Fanboy" could have been healing up "back there" right now. You know what team I'm rooting for. The test took place and data collected. The fixes are being implemented... Tick - Tock...

[robertoler]

Vulcan is going to be the premier rocket of the time

[mbmurphy]

ULA has some unique and valuable tech. The high energy upper stage is great. Never count out the RL10 Centaur stage.

[richardzeitz]

Good point about backs against the wall. The same thing, economic pressure leading to a lapse in judgment, has a long history. We saw in in both space shuttle disasters and they didn't have the pressures a commercial launch provider experiences. But it's a matter of budget and pressure to launch. Richard Feynman's analysis of the Challenger disaster is interesting and I think we see the same sorta pressure warp the decision making process with Columbia. Different exact pressures but the same principle with JAXA, etc. I wish ULA luck and think they'll need it if they don't have the right systems in place to protect the integrity of the decision making process. I hope that something was learned from NASA's and JAXA's experiences they can apply in ULA. I'm no fan of the BE-4 but I hope Vulcan works alright!

[BuckeyeNut]

Whew. That was a close one. You almost forgot to ask for moving money in this video.

[MrEd]

Well it looks like being optimistic the soonest both Vulcan and Starship will fly is July 4th of this year. It is a race again! I hope they both succeed. It may not yet be too late for ULA, but the clock is ticking and if 2024 dawns with no immediate 2nd launch on tap then it may be curtains for ULA, but good news for Space X.
There is really not a lot of excuse for ULA not being further along in reusability and not fully testing the second stage. They certainly had plenty of time and their tech is not nearly as groundbreaking as SpaceX.
I am also disappointed Sierra Space did not spend more time preparing Dream Chaser and less time on their eventual space station collaboration with Blue Origin. (They had to push back the initial Dream Chaser launch to NET December this year.)
SpaceX is certainly imperfect, but it at least operates with a sense of urgency that ULA, Sierra Space, NASA, and Blue Origin seem to lack.

[akhilathawale]

Is it just me, or does anyone else also put on Angry's videos when going through their household chores? Seriously, this is the gold standard for journalism.
Love your videos, Angry!

[helgekumpfert]

Angry Astronaut stands for professional journalism at its best.

[mbmurphy]

For example, because of the high energy upper stage, Vulcan and FH have pretty similar mass capability to TLI.

[NOM-X]

Make no mistake, I love ULA and their designs. But.. They need to swallow their pride and ask SpaceX for advice. Elon is and has said and done, give his openness to sharing his development architecture when it comes to basically everything except the Raptor designs. ULA, and Blue Origen really have to just suck it up and get the help they need from someone that has "been there and done that."
Another great episode by the angry guy. Looking forward to the next. Stay safe.
- NOM

[StillAliveAndKicking_]

I am surprised ULA aren’t doing a test launch with dummy or test payloads. This is the first launch of a totally new rocket, and they expect success first time. A failure will harm their reputation. One thing I like about SpaceX is their use of progressive testing to iron out issues.

[johnanderson]

SpaceX is sucking the air out of the rocket market by offering more available launching spaces at much lower prices. Traditional launch providers will find themselves in great financial trouble if they don't innovate and adjust quickly.

[johnmoruzzi]

Second stages have really been causing problems lately, but you can't assume it's just a maiden launch that can go wrong. Virgin Orbit were confident in theirs, and ESA / Avio's Vega C was expected to be fine after a successful test flight but when they switched to Ukranian production hardware after the development and test phase it wasn't up to the job and they destroyed 2 important French satellites. Relativity had a failed 2nd stage on their 1st flight, and Astra's Rocket 3.0 burned through it's 2nd stage engine nozzle on a significant NASA missiion because they waited too long in the Florida heat getting the thing to finally launch and their budget kerosene fuel had become too warm.

[coolmadmike]

Tory Bruno likes my tweets. Elon doesn't. 🙃 ULA has my full support! Go Vulcan!

[ronwatkins]

They will be lucky if they make it through Max-Q when you consider how little testing that they have done compared to Starship. I think they are nutz for trying to place a commercial payload on the first launch. It will take several launches before they can even achieve orbit.

[sliceofheaven]

I think it depends on what ULA´s goals are. If they are intending to go big with rockets like Spacex then they probably have a lot of work ahead of them. On the other hand I do think that Elon´s impatience with launching those bigger rockets has kinda backfired on him since now they will most likely spend a few months repairing the damage and building new measures to prevent the same happening again in the next planned launch of those specific rockets (well and also getting a green light from FAA). On the other hand I think the question also is are the big rockets actually a viable way to do launches from Earth since its greater gravity does set some more challenges to rocket based launches. Personally I would try to set up a bunch of lighter reusable rockets and get those to carry the parts of those bigger rockets to earths orbit where those parts could be assembled together into a much bigger rocket withouth needing to invest so much into the launching phase.

[jamesp]

No the government needs them. Hopefully they succeed but I don't see the Gov't bailing on them