Vulcan to launch Peregrine lunar lander on inaugural flight

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United Launch Alliance(ULA) is preparing to return the US to the Moon with the launch of Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander atop its brand-new Vulcan Centaur rocket. 

Cert-1, The first-ever mission for Vulcan, is expected to liftoff on Monday, Jan. 8 at 2:18 AM EST (7:18 AM UTC) with a 45-minute launch window. It will be taking off out of Space Launch Complex(SLC) 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Vulcan was expected to fly in 2023 on Dec. 24, 2023, until routine problems with the ground equipment caused only a partial wet dress rehearsal(WDR). The chief executive of ULA, Tory Bruno said, “I’d like a FULL WDR before our first flight, so XMAS eve is likely out”.

This set the launch date back to Jan. 8, 2024. Vulcan Centaur was rolled out 500 meters on the Vulcan Launch Platform on Friday, Jan. 5 for what should be the final time before launch.

If Vulcan is to scrub on Jan. 8, ULA can launch on Jan. 9-11 with a smaller launch window due to the orbital mechanics of getting to the Moon. If it is pushed past Jan.11, ULA’s Gary Wentz confirmed that the next backup date would be Jan. 23.

Vulcan Overview

After nearly a decade of development, Vulcan Centaur is preparing to launch two payloads using the VC2S variant. The VC2S variant of Vulcan represents a Vulcan Centaur with two solid rocket boosters(SRB) and a standard fairing. This configuration can take Peregrine to the lunar surface and Enterprise Flight to deep space. 

Vulcan is a two-stage rocket that uses liquefied natural gas and liquid oxygen on the first stage and liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen on Centuar V, the second stage. The first stage engines are two of Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines that have been in development since 2011. This will be BE-4’s first in-flight mission and will move ULA from Russian dependency with the RD-180 engines on Atlas V to American-made engines on Vulcan. 

Attached to the side of the booster are two graphite-epoxy motors(GEM) 63XL SRBs built by Northrup Grumman. These will be the longest monolithic SRBs ever flown and will be a considerable upgrade to the GEM 63 SRBs used on Atlas V.

The second stage will use two RL-10 engines built by Aerojet Rocketdyne. These are the same upper-stage engines that Atlas V used and are proven to be extremely reliable. The standard 15.5-meter payload fairings will be aerodynamically covering the payloads during assent until second-stage ignition where they will be jettisoned. 

Vulcan is 61.6 meters tall and 5.4 meters in diameter. It will weigh 663,367 kilograms when fully loaded on the launch pad, and will produce 8.9 meganewtons of thrust at liftoff. This flight of Vulcan will be heading to a Trans-lunar Injection(TLI) to get a payload to the Moon and then change to a heliocentric orbit. This means with the two SRB Vulcan will be able to deliver up to 6,300 kilograms to the Moon.

Flight Profile

ULA will likely begin to load the liquified natural gas, liquid hydrogen, and liquid oxygen propellant onto Vulcan late Jan. 7 preparing to be fully loaded by Jan.8 at 2:18 AM EST (7:18 AM UTC) when the window opens for flight. 

Then, the BE-4 engines will ignite right before liftoff at T-5 seconds and Vulcan will begin to gain altitude at T+1 second. It will then begin the pitch/yaw maneuver shortly after clearing the tower. 

Vulcan will then reach mach one at T+1 minute and 9 seconds before reaching max-Q or the maximum aerodynamic stress Vulcan will have to endure through its entire flight. Then around 35 seconds later, the GEM 63XL SRBs will separate from the vehicle and be jettisoned. 

The BE-4 engines will continue to burn until booster engine cutoff at T+ 4:59. Six seconds later, the first stage is done with flight and will separate from the second stage. Centaur V will then start its two RL-10 engines at T+5:15. Once the engines are lit, the fairings will separate revealing the payloads at T+5:23. 

Centaur will continue its initial burn for a little over 10 minutes until T+15:45 into flight. At this point, Vulcan will be in a coast phase until T+43 minutes 35 seconds when the RL-10s will relight for course correction to TLI. 

At T+47:37 the second stage will shut down once again and will coast for just under three minutes. After this coast phase, the Peregrine lunar lander is placed in a highly elliptical orbit where it will then be released to intercept the Moon.

After Peregrine’s separation, Centaur relights one final time at T+1 hour 18 minutes and 24 seconds for 20 seconds to place Celestis Memorial Spaceflight’s ‘Enterprise Flight’ payload into a heliocentric orbit. The official mission end is anticipated at T+4:24:44

The flight profile for the Cert-1 mission. (Credit: ULA)

Enterprise Flight

Celestis Memorial Spaceflights are providing the opportunity to send DNA or cremated remains to deep space. The service called Voyager Memorial Spaceflight promises to send a piece of you or a loved one on a journey to 297 million kilometers into space. 

There will be a memorial service and dinner for the friends family and loved ones who are sending their late friend or family member on one final journey before the launch on Monday.

Celestis Memorial Spaceflights have been around since 1997 and have launched on many different vehicles including Pegasus-XL, Falcon 1, Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and now will fly on Vulcan. 

Peregrine Mission One

Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander will attempt to be one of the first US Moon landings since the end of the Apollo program. In 2019, Astrobotic was selected by NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) and given a 79.5 million dollar contract to build Peregrine to study the Moon before the Artemis III mission when humans return to it. 

The Peregrine lander beginning encapsulation inside the fairing. Credit: ULA)

Peregrine now has 20 payloads on board, with five of them coming from NASA’s CLPS. These payloads include specific scientific projects with the main goals of looking for water ice in the lunar regolith and gaining more data on the radiation environment, the lunar exosphere, and the magnetic fields on the surface of the Moon. Some payloads are there to represent humanity with art and historical artifacts.

Around 40 minutes after separation from Centaur, Peregrine will come to life and will begin receiving signals from Astrobotic’s mission control center in Pittsburgh, PA. There will be small adjustment maneuvers in Earth’s orbit to check systems for Peregrine’s lunar landing. After those are confirmed, Peregrine will aim its solar panels toward the sun to charge its lithium-ion battery for the long coast to the Moon. 

Render of the Peregrine lunar lander on the moon. Credit: Astrobotic

Peregrine will land in Sinus Vicositatis on Feb. 23 and is expected to operate for eight days. If the mission is successful, Astrobotic will become the first commercial company to successfully land a spacecraft on the Moon.

(Lead image: ULA’s first Vulcan to reach SLC-41. Credit: Max Evans for NSF)

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