The 200-foot Vulcan Centaur rocket can do more than just launch satellites into orbit. While the rocket is awaiting certification to launch military payloads, United Launch Alliance(ULA) suggests that Vulcan can also be used to deter space enemies and protect U.S. assets in orbit.
During the Spacepower conference earlier this month, ULA CEO Tory Bruno said he had alternative plans for the heavy-lift launch vehicle, SpaceNews reports. Bruno proposes to use the upper stage of the rocket as a “space interceptor” to prevent attacks on US space assets. “Our vision is to have a platform that is lightning fast, long-range and, if necessary, very lethal,” he said during the conference. “What I’m working on is essentially a rocket that works in space.”
Well, that’s certainly a good idea. The 202-foot (61.6-meter) tall Vulcan Centaur is a single-use, heavy-lift, single-use launch vehicle that was first conceived in 2006. The rocket borrowed design elements from ULA’s Atlas V and Delta IV rockets and finally made its debut on January 8, launching Astrobotic’s Peregrine lander toward the moon. The rocket’s inaugural flight was originally scheduled for 2019, but Vulcan faced several problems and delays that postponed this important day.
The Vulcan Centaur is critical to the commercial space industry as well as U.S. national security. With its Vulcan rocket, ULA hopes to compete with SpaceX, the space industry favorite. The U.S. military has become more dependent on SpaceX to launch its payloads into orbit, a market share previously dominated by ULA.
However, Vulcan is not yet ready to launch military payloads. In October, the rocket made its second certification flight, but the ULA marching vehicle encountered a problem. After a nominal takeoff, the rocket encountered a problem about 35 seconds after launch, when a plume of material suddenly appeared coming out of one of the two boosters.
The main goal of the Cert-2 mission was for the US Space Force to certify the Vulcan launch vehicle for national security missions, and the rocket was to deliver two US military payloads into orbit this year. A bad flight delayed the rocket’s certification process.
Bruno’s recent proposal to turn the rocket into a space superhero may be an act of desperation as ULA continues to lag behind its main competitor, SpaceX. During the conference, the ULA CEO suggested that the Vulcan rocket’s upper stage could be modernized to serve as a long-range spacecraft and respond quickly to incoming threats.
“We know that the Chinese are going to chase us in space,” Bruno said, according to SpaceNews. “If we see an attack developing, where a Chinese vehicle spends days or weeks approaching something of interest, we have something that we can move there in a few hours and interrupt the attack before it starts.”
Mentioning China’s growing capabilities in space is one way to get people to support your plan. Bruno’s remarks, however, reflect a larger concern shared by both national and commercial spaceflight players: space is moving toward a militarized future where orbital warfare may be inevitable.
