Rocket Science: The Vulcan-Centaur Rocket System

Will the Vulcan rocket ever fly? And can it compete with the Falcon 9?
ULA is working hard to get the Vulcan-Centaur rocket system off the ground.
Though delays are expected Blue Origin's continued failure to produce a flight ready BE-4 engine on time has endangered the entire Vulcan project. Mr. Bruno has recently said that the engines are finally ready, and released pictures of them. But how competitive will the Vulcan-Centaur be?
The Terran Space Academy evaluates the difficult process of developing a new rocket system,
and compares the upcoming Vulcan to the now industry standard Falcon 9, while walking you through the equations needed to understand the potential of different rockets.

Thank you so much for watching!

Topics Discussed
Vulcan-Centaur Rocket System
Centaur second stage and RL-10 rocket engine
BE-4 rocket engine by Blue Origin
AR-1 rocket engine by Aerojet Rocketdyne
Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rocket systems

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Credits
ULA / Blue Origin / SpaceX / Aerojet Rocketdyne / Northrup Grumman

Artists

Companies

Extra Credit

[rayoflight]

Thank you for another enlightening video!
Regards from the UK...
Anthony

[dukenukem]

thank you again for all your hard work

[cwcordes]

Great lesson as always. I watched Tim Dodd's everyday astronaut's Raptor interview with Elon which also premiered today. Watching and listening to Spacex blowing up 30 raptor engines and constantly redesigning based on first principles at breakneck speed is just amazing. With due respect to the decades old fantastic Centaur, it seems that David is running circles around Goliaths legs. ULA need a coup or something in management.

[TimStCroix]

12:49 "Why doesn't anyone plan to build something bigger than Starship?"
Someone is: SpaceX.
They're planning Starship 2.0 with double the width and height. Eight times the volume. My theory is that it's main purpose is to fully refuel Starship 1.0 with one launch instead of the 8 launches currently planned using Starship 1.0 tankers.

[Sora._Cloud]

Exactly!!’n with regards to closing statements

[dmurray]

This will be a good one. I wonder if their smart engine reuse will be viable

[chadjensenster]

So, I love space, not sure if anybody else here does or not. Something something algorithm. Thanks as always for the top notch content.

[kenhelmers]

This one is full of "Hmmm..." moments :) Thanks!

[JCStaling]

Breaking it all down scientifically every week, thanks TSA!

[gregorykotoch]

Why would anyone choose to use a centaur when falcon 9s are more capable and less expensive? Btw, I like the imperial system.

[jtjames]

Can ULAs next-gen rocket compete with Spacex's soon to be retiring rocket?

Kind of a stupid question.

By the time the competition catches up to Elon, he's already on the next thing. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Like the automotive manufacturers who are still trying to catch up to 2012 Tesla.

[peteparker]

I was waiting for you to speak about the costs. It is such a puzzling question to me. WHY (in my Texas drawl) would ULA spend soooo much money on, for a lack of a better term, a turd. And! With no guarantee of BO producing a workable engine. It makes no sense to me. ULA has painted themselves in a corner. Deltas are almost completely done. Atlas are also nearing the end of there careers. I don’t get it.is money not an issue?

[lolbots]

coming back to this after today's launch

[hoffbd]

Torry's new rocket is already obsolete before it even flies. It is nice to have multiple launch options and providers but they really need to come up with a design that is better than what is already proven.

[markmelcon]

I cannot find all of the videos mentioned in the Vulcan-Centaur video. Is there a site with an index of all Terran Space Academy presentations?

[dannychen]

ULA is lobbying to block new launchers from entering the phase 3 of the lucrative NSSL contract which has been their bread & butter, and would have been matter of survival for them if it wasn’t for the recent Amazon Kuiper launch contracts.

One of the biggest tensions concerns the extent to which the Space Force will seek to broaden the pool of potential applicants. Incumbent United Launch Alliance has drafted a letter, now signed by more than two dozen US House members, that encourages the Space Force to require launch providers to "meet all critical mission requirements." This would effectively limit the contest to those companies with large, “high energy” rockets. Other legislators are seeking to make the launch competition more accessible to new entrants.

Space Force senior official: “Key for us is allowing on-ramps, allowing for some smaller launches to have a chance, ” the official added, in order to avoid billion-dollar “Titan-era prices, ” a reference to a ULA’s older, pricier launch vehicle.

So two forces at play here. From reading between the lines, they are trying to block Rocket Lab’s Neutron from entering and probably to a lesser extent Blue Origin. This is one reason why I believe Neutron’s payload was updated from 8 tons RTLS to 13 tons downrange in April, and not just for purely marketing reasons.

[yanniklemm]

The answer to the final question is rather simple compared to the rest of the lesson:
Because they don't need to.
Ula has had the US government as its main Customer for decades launching expensive mission for even more expensive Satellites. Their goal was never to revolutionise Space, it was to earn money.
And the will continue to do so as long the the US Gov sees fit to have an alternative to spacex for redundancy. And if the Price of the Launch does not matter if you only got 2 Providers and you "need" both.
Most Private Customers have allready switched to SpaceX and the Only Exeption is Amazon booking the "anything but SpaceX" package for Kuiper.
My Guess is ULA has about a decade of life left in it before the US Government switches to the next, more economical Launch Provider after SpaceX. Maybe it will Astra or Firefly or... most Likely Relativity Space.

[bkstyles]

Hi, there sir, how to calculate exhaust velocity in interstellar medium / deep space on earth we calculate specific impulse times gravitational force 9.81m/s^2 but due to the absence of gravity how do we calculate? thankyou

[pferd]

Excellent. Thanks. It was probably a reasonable idea when it was conceived (like Constellation/Artemis). As irritated as I am at the old guard, can you imagine Tory telling the ULA board in 2014 he wants to go to Mars and plans to start developing the rocket(s) and infrastructure to get us there sans an RFP from NASA or the DOD? How about now? That's a non-starter. And how could anyone anticipate the eventual success and paradigm shift in reusability caused by Falcon 9? But change they must or it won't just be SpaceX eating their lunch.

[jadefinchscene]

wasn't the SRB developed by Morten Thiokol which was purchased by orbital ATK which was later purchased by Northrup Grumman?