Miami (EFE) be able to do this year.
On Wednesday night, the rocket completed a static fire test on a platform at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida (USA), called Flight Readiness Firing (FRF), through which, after loading fuel, both of its first stage engines fired for up to six seconds.
During that period, “the engines accelerated to the planned level for two seconds and then turned off,” the company said on its website about the test that began at 9:05 p.m. on Wednesday local time (01:05 GMT on Thursday), and in which All rocket and ground control systems were tested.
“It is a great milestone. This is the closest you can get to launching a rocket without actually launching it,” Mark Peller, Vulcan’s vice president of development, said after the exercise, according to the specialized media SpaceNews.
The data for the launch will be studied
ULA had planned to carry out this test on May 25, but an anomaly discovered in the ignition system of the engines of what is its new range of rockets made it necessary to suspend the test a few hours before it was carried out and return the Vulcan Centaur to a hangar of the Floridan complex.
After the test on Wednesday night, the firm will remove the 62-meter-tall rocket from the launch pad to study the information and prepare it for its maiden mission, Cert-1, which does not yet have a launch date.
As the president of ULA, Tory Bruno, pointed out months ago, prior to this mission, the firm’s engineers first have to resolve a hydrogen leak detected in the second stage of the rocket during tests carried out last March.
“Tests are an integral part of our launch vehicle development program and we will fly when we believe it is safe to do so,” the firm said last night, after the static fire test.
The maiden flight of the Vulcan Centaur will carry the Astrobotic company’s Peregrine lunar lander; it will deploy two prototype broadband satellites from Amazon’s Kuiper Project and carry a payload from Celestis, the company that provides space “burials” of people’s cremated remains.
The Vulcan Centaur, which will replace the two rockets currently flying for the company, the Atlas V and Delta IV, is powered by a pair of BE-4 engines made by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin company.
