Follow-up: ULA Vulcan Lifts Off on Return-to-Flight Mission With 40 Amazon Leo Satellites, All Six Boosters Away Cleanly
United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket lifted off at 12:40 p.m. Eastern on November 15 from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, carrying 40 Amazon Leo broadband satellites on a northeasterly trajectory toward low Earth orbit. The flight, designated LV-01, is Vulcan's first since a solid rocket booster nozzle anomaly shortly after liftoff on February 12 grounded the rocket for nine months.
One minute and 45 seconds into flight, ULA reported that all six solid rocket boosters had been jettisoned at an altitude of about 22 miles, with the rocket continuing on its way. The day's launch window ran from 12:11 p.m. to 12:40 p.m. Eastern; the countdown was held once during the count before the team reset liftoff to the end of the window at 12:40 p.m. Attempts on November 13 and 14 had been scrubbed, first over a gaseous nitrogen supply power outage and then over a ground communication issue.
The rocket flew in the VC6L configuration: a low Earth orbit-optimized Centaur V upper stage, six side-mounted solid rocket boosters and a longer-length payload fairing 70 feet long. ULA says this is the first of 38 Vulcan launches Amazon has booked with the company, following eight successful Amazon Leo deployment missions on Atlas V. The initial Amazon Leo constellation will include more than 3,000 satellites delivering broadband to areas beyond the reach of existing networks.
Under the flight profile, the Centaur V is to begin releasing the 40 satellites about 70 minutes after liftoff, over a deployment sequence of about 25 minutes. Deployment had not yet begun at the time of this report and will be covered in a follow-up.
(Source: United Launch Alliance)
Reference: Florida Today
Source: United Launch Alliance
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：火神火箭升空实景（资料图，为该型火箭早前一次发射画面）。美国太空军照片，Collin Wesson 摄，公共领域。 / Photo: A Vulcan rocket lifts off (file photo from an earlier launch of the same rocket type). U.S. Space Force photo by Collin Wesson, public domain.
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