On a Wednesday in late October, United Launch Alliance announced that its Vulcan rocket would fly again on November 13, nine months after a booster fault in February pulled it from service and rippled through the nation's launch plans. The mission will carry forty satellites for Amazon's broadband network from Cape Canaveral, a reminder that the ambitions of commerce and the discipline of national defense now depend on the same few machines. Beneath the schedule lies an unanswered question: the company has described its fixes but has not yet said what, precisely, went wrong, so the flight is b
ULA Plans Vulcan Return to Flight on November 13 After Nine-Month Booster Grounding
Nine months after a booster anomaly, Vulcan gets its chance to prove the fix
Mark
Nine months on the ground. Why does this particular launch matter so much?
Mimi
Because it's the test of the fix. ULA says the improved nozzle design flies on this mission, and the Space Force has said it wants flight data from commercial missions before it clears Vulcan for national security work.
Mark
The rocket finished its missions both times the nozzle failed, though. Why did the Space Force lose confidence?
Mimi
The rocket compensated, but a nozzle failing on two of the first four flights is a pattern. The Pentagon has leaned on Vulcan for roughly half its major launches through the early 2030s, so it can't treat that lightly.
Luke
Worth being careful here. ULA says it has identified several potential contributors and mitigated them. That's the company's description. Neither ULA nor Northrop Grumman has publicly named a root cause for February.
Mark
So we don't actually know what broke?
Luke
Not publicly. The 2024 failure was blamed on an insulator manufacturing defect, but nothing confirms February was the same thing. And neither company answered questions Wednesday.
Mimi
ULA also says testing and analysis continue in parallel with the flight. So the flight is part of the validation, not the end of it.
Mark
What has the grounding cost in practice?
Mimi
Six missions moved to SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, including three GPS satellites and the Oracle-M lunar mission. ULA got six future SpaceX-assigned missions in return, so the totals haven't changed.
Luke
Right, and that's "so far." Also, the date is November 13 only pending range approval, and the first national security flight back is "perhaps early next year." Both are soft.
Mark
And the rocket itself is new on this flight?
Mimi
In several ways. First with six solid boosters, a longer fairing for Amazon's satellites, and a shorter Centaur upper stage. A lot of firsts on a return-to-flight mission.
The Pulse
- A booster nozzle has failed twice in four flights, and the cause remains publicly unnamed.
- The Space Force has moved six missions to SpaceX and quietly reshuffled others, unsettling a launch manifest once tied to Vulcan.
- ULA is betting that a flight with an improved nozzle will prove the fixes while engineers keep testing in parallel.
- The November 13 launch debuts six boosters and a larger fairing, and its performance will decide when military launches resume, possibly early next year.
On a Wednesday in late October, United Launch Alliance announced that its Vulcan rocket would fly again on November 13, nine months after a booster fault in February pulled it from service and rippled through the nation's launch plans. The mission will carry forty satellites for Amazon's broadband network from Cape Canaveral, a reminder that the ambitions of commerce and the discipline of national defense now depend on the same few machines. Beneath the schedule lies an unanswered question: the company has described its fixes but has not yet said what, precisely, went wrong, so the flight is both a return and a test of trust.
United Launch Alliance has set November 13 as the day its Vulcan rocket flies again, nine months after a solid rocket booster anomaly in February halted its schedule. The launch, still awaiting range approval, will carry forty satellites for Amazon Leo from Cape Canaveral, the first of dozens of Vulcan flights Amazon has booked to build out its network.
The stakes are high. Vulcan has suffered nozzle failures on two of its first four missions, and although the rocket recovered both times, the Space Force, ULA's main customer, has grown wary. The Pentagon had counted on Vulcan for roughly half its major launches, so the grounding has already pushed six missions to SpaceX and shifted several others. ULA says it has identified and mitigated likely contributors through design and process changes, but neither it nor booster maker Northrop Grumman has publicly named the root cause.
The military wants to see commercial flight data before it trusts Vulcan with national security payloads again. The November mission, with its full set of six boosters and a new fairing, will largely determine when that day comes.
United Launch Alliance said Wednesday that it plans to fly its Vulcan rocket again on November 13, nine months after a solid rocket booster anomaly upended the company's 2026 launch schedule. The date is pending range approval.
The return-to-flight mission will carry 40 satellites for Amazon Leo, the broadband constellation that could eventually compete with SpaceX's Starlink. It will lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, and it is the first of 38 Vulcan flights Amazon has booked to deploy the bulk of its network. Amazon also has a stockpile of satellites in storage waiting for rides on the rocket.
The stakes are high for ULA, a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Vulcan, its new flagship, has suffered nozzle failures on its solid rocket boosters on two of its first four missions, the latest during a flight in February. In both cases the rocket compensated and completed its mission. Even so, officials at the US Space Force, ULA's primary customer, lost confidence in the vehicle. The Pentagon has entrusted Vulcan with roughly half of its major launches through the early 2030s. The Space Force certified the rocket for national security missions in 2025 and flew two of them before the February incident grounded it.
In a statement, ULA said its engineers had made great strides in understanding the February anomaly and had identified several potential contributors, which it said have been mitigated through design and process improvements to the nozzle. The coming flight will use the improved nozzle, while additional testing and analysis continue in parallel. ULA argued that flying the new design yields flight data validating the changes, which it called the most beneficial path for all its customers.
What the company has not done is name a root cause. Neither ULA nor Northrop Grumman, which makes the boosters, has publicly identified what went wrong in February. Investigators blamed the first nozzle problem, in 2024, on a manufacturing defect in an insulator meant to shield the nozzle's metal structure from the rocket's superheated exhaust. Neither company answered Ars Technica's questions on Wednesday.
The grounding has already reshaped the military's launch manifest. The Space Force has moved six missions off Vulcan to SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets to get them flying sooner, and ULA received six future missions originally assigned to SpaceX, the military's other certified provider. Three GPS satellites moved to Falcon 9 for launches last year and earlier this year. Space Systems Command, which oversees military launch procurement, also swapped one Space Development Agency launch from ULA to SpaceX. The Air Force Research Laboratory's Oracle-M lunar mission will now fly on Falcon Heavy, with Vulcan receiving a future SpaceX-assigned launch in exchange, and a large strategic missile warning satellite made a similar move to Falcon Heavy.
So far the swaps have not changed the total number of missions awarded to each company. They are also separate from the Space Force's assignment of unallocated future missions, a process that may already be complicated by SpaceX's plans to retire the Falcon family. A Space Systems Command spokesperson said the swaps were carried out in coordination with both providers, and thanked them for their flexibility in delivering capabilities to the warfighter.
Brig. Gen. Eric Zarybnisky, the command's chief rocket buyer, said the military wants to see data from commercial Vulcan flights before clearing ULA to resume national security launches. At least two Amazon Leo missions are scheduled before the next national security flight, which could come early next year. Those flights will carry a significant number of solids, he said, and the decision will depend on both ground engineering and testing and on what the flight data shows.
The November launch carries several firsts. It will be the first Vulcan to fly with a full set of six solid rocket boosters, and it will debut an extended payload fairing to hold Amazon's satellite stack, along with a shortened Centaur upper stage optimized for low-Earth orbit missions. The booster performance on that flight will largely determine when Vulcan returns to military work.
Notable Quotes
Those flights will have a significant number of solids; it will depend a lot on what we see from ground testing and from flight data on the commercial missions.— Brig. Gen. Eric Zarybnisky, Space Systems Command
ULA said engineers have made great strides and mitigated several potential contributors through design and process improvements to the nozzle.— United Launch Alliance statement
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