ULA’s second Vulcan rocket lost part of its booster and kept going
United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, under contract for dozens of flights for the US military and Amazon’s Kuiper broadband network, lifted off from Florida on its second test flight Friday, suffered an anomaly with one of its strap-on boosters, and still achieved a successful mission, the company said in a statement.
This test flight, known as Cert-2, is the second certification mission for the new Vulcan rocket, a milestone that paves the way for the Space Force to clear ULA’s new rocket to begin launching national security satellites in the coming months.
While ULA said the Vulcan rocket continued to hit its marks during the climb into orbit Friday, engineers are investigating what happened with one of its solid rocket boosters shortly after liftoff.
