this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2024
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Space Force says first national security Vulcan launch now anticipated in spring 2025 – Spaceflight Now (spaceflightnow.com)
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by threelonmusketeers to c/spaceflight
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I wonder if they'd go with option A and try to get the 3-4 flights in if more payloads were ready, but Dreamchaser is having a hard time and Amazon Kuiper hasn't even thought about using their Atlas V launches, much less their Vulcan ones.

[–] threelonmusketeers 1 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

Do they have many other customers for Vulcan yet? The manifest seems to be mostly Dream Chaser, Kuiper, USSF, and NRO.

Amazon Kuiper hasn't even thought about using their Atlas V launches

Does this final comment from Tory suggest that this will change soon?

Bruno said they’ll deliver the last two Atlas 5 rockets “in the next couple of months.” He said they are just waiting on two parts from suppliers to finish off those rockets, which will then be moved into storage.

“We expect to fly all except the Starliner Atlases out in ’25 or perhaps early ’26,” Bruno said.

Would we expect all 9 (or 8?) Kuiper launches on Atlas V to fly in the next year or so?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 hours ago

I think you're right on the manifest.

Amazon standing up their own satellite mass production from scratch is a lot. They launched the two prototype satellites in Oct '23. It's a huge step from just two to making design updates from the first launch and cranking out dozens for the next launch then 1+ per day for the rate they need to hit. There's been such a big gap since the protos and so little news that 5+ launches in the next 12 months seems impossible unless they already quietly have these things piling up and filling some warehouse and payload processing facility.