- United Launch Alliance
or ULA finally launched their new Vulcan rocket
for the very first time.
This is a big deal
because it's the first rocket
that they actually developed from scratch
and it's also likely their last chance at surviving in this
modern space flame boom.
So how does this new Vulcan Rocket compare
to its predecessors, the rockets that it's replacing,
which are the Atlas V and the Delta IV heavy?
And perhaps more importantly, how does it compare
to its biggest competitor,
SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy?
I'm Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut.
And today we're going to do something crazy for me.
We're going to just do a properly short video
where we're going to do a deep dive
straight into the meat of this topic.
What are the specs of this Vulcan rocket
and how does it compare to those
other rockets we just listed?
Let's get started.
- Before we dive in, I'm sure some
of you were expecting to see New Glenn in this lineup
and maybe a few other rockets like Arianne 6
or perhaps SpaceX's massive Starship Rocket.
But to try and keep this video as short as possible for once
I whittled this list down to the rockets
that Vulcan is actually replacing
and its biggest competitors, the Falcon 9
and Falcon Heavy, perhaps once new Glenn launches,
we can do a video like this again for New Glenn
and its closest rivals.
By the way, you're gonna notice that I'm saying things like
expander cycle, open cycle, closed cycle,
and kind of talking about a few different cycle types here.
If you have any questions about that, be sure
and watch my video called "How to Power a Rocket Engine"
We go really deep into all the different power cycles.
Okay, let's start off
by comparing the size of these rockets.
The Atlas V is up to 58.3 meters tall
and the core is 3.8 meters wide.
The Delta IV Heavy is 72 meters tall
and five meters wide per core.
Vulcan is 61.2 meters tall
and 5.4 meters wide while Falcon 9
and Falcon Heavy are up to 70 meters tall
and 3.7 meters wide per core.
So Vulcan is actually the widest rocket in this bunch.
Next up, let's talk about their engines,
including which cycle type they run on which propellant they
use their specific impulse and their thrust.
Starting with the first stages, the Atlas V has a single
oxygen rich closed cycle RD-180 engine
that runs on kerolox
or in other words, liquid oxygen with RP-1 or kerosene.
The RD-180 produces 3.83 meganewtons of thrust at sea level
and hits 311 seconds of specific impulse at sea level
and 338 in a vacuum.
This engine is the primary reason
for the Atlas V's demise.
Since that engine is built in Russia by NPO mache
and due to sanctions against Russia
after they annexed Crimea in 2014,
the engines eventually became unavailable to ULA.
The Atlas V can also use up
to five GEM 63 solid rocket boosters,
which each produce 1.66 meganewtons of thrust
and around 245 seconds of specific impulse at sea level.
The Delta IV heavy uses the open cycle dual gas generator
ABL cooled RS-68A engine that runs on liquid hydrogen
and liquid oxygen or hydrolox.
On the core stages it produces 3.1 meganewtons of thrust,
so a combined total of 9.3 meganewtons of thrust
for the trio of course,
and they get 360 seconds of specific impulse at sea level
and 412 seconds in a vacuum.
Vulcan has two Blue Origin built oxygen rich closed cycle BE-4
engines which run on liquid methane and liquid oxygen
or methalox and produce 2.45 meganewtons of thrust each
for a combined total of 4.9 meganewtons for the core stage.
Now we don't know the exact specific impulse
of the BE-4 since they haven't announced any official
numbers, but we do expect it to be around 320 seconds
of specific impulse at sea level
and likely a little above 340 in space.
Vulcan can have up to six GEM 63XL solid rocket
boosters in pairs.
So either 0 ,2, 4 or 6.
And these are much more powerful than the GEM 63's on
the Atlas with 2.2 meganewtons of thrust each
with about the same ISP of 245 seconds.
Now considering the Vulcan can have up
to six solid rocket boosters, the most powerful version
of Vulcan has a total liftoff thrust of 18.1 meganewtons.
Now when you compare that to the Atlas V's most powerful
version having only 12.1 meganewtons
Vulcan is substantially more powerful than it
and the Delta IV Heavy.
But how do all these numbers stack up against the Falcon
nine and Falcon Heavy?
The Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy cores each have nine open
cycle gas generator Merlin 1D engines that run on kerolox
and each produce 845 kilonewtons of thrust for a total
of 7.6 meganewtons per core.
So 7.6 meganewtons for the Falcon 9
and 22.8 meganewtons for Falcon Heavy.
The Merlin gets about 282 seconds
of specific impulse at sea level and 311 seconds in space.
Okay, all that thrust is awesome and all,
but what about the upper stage engines?
The Centaur upper stage of the Atlas V has one
or two RL-10 variants
that like all RL tens are expander cycle
and run on hydrolox producing up to 102 kilonewtonnes
of thrust each but achieve up
to 450 seconds of specific impulse.
The Delta IV heavies Delta Cryogenic Second Stage
or DCSS also runs on hydrolox
and an RL-10 variant, specifically the RL-10B2
which produces 110 kilonewtons of thrust in a vacuum
and a whopping 465 seconds of specific impulse in space.
The upper stage of Vulcan called the Centaur V has two
RL-10C's that also run on hydrolox
and produce 106 kilonewtonnes of thrust each
and get 454 seconds of specific impulse and space.
But Vulcan's upper stage eventually should get the RL-10C-X,
which would achieve 461 seconds of specific impulse.
We might see the upper stage offer long duration boil off
prevention in the future with the integrated vehicle fluid
system, which could allow on orbit lifespan
of weeks instead of hours.
And we could also potentially see a LEO optimized version
with shorter tankage to lower the costs as well.
The Falcons use a single vacuum optimized Merlin 1D,
which is still open cycle gas generator
and produces 981 kilonewtons of thrust
and 348 seconds of specific impulse in space.
Okay, but now the important question,
how do all these vehicles actually compare in terms
of payload capacity?
The Atlas V can take between 9.8 tonnes
to LEO in its most basic form up
to 18.8 tonnes in its most powerful Atlas V 551 configuration.
And it can do from 4.7 tonnes up to 8.9 tonnes
for a geostationary transfer orbit.
Depending again on that configuration,
Delta IV heavy can take 23.8 tonnes to low Earth orbit
and 14.2 tonnes to geostationary transfer orbit.
And again, depending on the configuration, Vulcan can take
between 10.8 tonnes up to 27.2 tonnes to low-earth orbit,
and it can throw 3.5 tonnes up to 15.3 tonnes
to geostationary transfer orbit.
So it's actually the most capable to high energy orbits
of any of the rockets that ULA has ever built.
But when we compare those numbers to the Falcon 9
and Falcon Heavy, it gets a little bit confusing since these
can be reflown.
So we'll actually quote a range similar to what we did
with ULA's rockets when we were comparing with
and without solid rocket boosters
and the different configurations.
But for these SpaceX rockets we're going to be talking about
with and without reusability,
and this will get even more confusing
because for LEO missions with the Falcon 9, we're going
to quote return to launch site landing performance numbers
since that's the cheapest option.
And we'll also be using return to launch site landings
for GTO missions as well,
since SpaceX has actually officially done this now too.
I mean, heck, they've even actually done a moon mission
with RTLS, albeit it was a very light payload,
but just remember they can get a lot more performance when
they do land down range on a drone ship while still being
recoverable, especially
for geostationary transfer orbit missions.
And for Falcon Heavy, we'll just use the dual boosters
landing back on land and expending the center core since
that's by far the most common configuration
for reusability to date.
We'll put this all up in the key when we talk about it,
but just keep that in mind.
Sorry, I know this is confusing,
but we're just trying to keep it simple.
Falcon 9 can lift a little more than 13 tonnes
to low earth orbit when doing a return
to launch site landing and about 25 tonnes when expended.
Falcon Heavy can launch between 30
or 40 tonnes while being reused
and about 64 tonnes to low earth orbit when expended.
But when it comes to geostationary transfer orbit
or direct to geo missions, the Falcon 9
and Heavy take a bit
of a performance hit from their less efficient Merlin 1D
engine compared
to the high performance RL-10 hydrolox engines
on ULA's rockets.
Falcon 9 can only do about 1.8 tonnes
to GTO when it's recovered back on land,
but it can do about 8.5 tonnes to GTO when it's expended.
And just for reference here, they can put about 7 tonnes
to GTO when landing down range on the drone ship.
So yeah, there's a pretty big payload penalty for a return
to launch site landing for GTO missions.
Falcon Heavy can do roughly 15 tonnes when reusing their side
cores and about 26.7 when expended
to geostationary transfer orbit.
Next, let's compare their payload fairing volumes.
Atlas V and Delta IV Heavy both cap out
around 233 cubic meters.
Vulcan comes in at about 310 cubic meters.
Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy have a payload volume
of about 145 cubic meters,
but Falcon Heavy is supposed
to have an extended fairing option that is closer
to 200 cubic meters that's supposed to be coming soon.
Lastly, we're going to try and touch on cost.
Now, this is always a tricky thing to talk about
because these numbers are never publicly available at all
and they're, and when you do see numbers,
there's like 20 pages of asterisk
or something to accompany these numbers.
So I'm just gonna throw out
what publicly available information we have.
And keep in mind there is a difference between the price
that these companies charge
and the cost to launch these rockets.
I think it's fairly safe to assume that if both SpaceX
and ULA could charge the exact same amount
for the exact same service,
SpaceX could likely profit more due to the reuse
of their Falcon boosters.
Atlas V starts at about 109 million,
although there's very little information on the cost
difference between the base Atlas V
and the massive 551.
But we do know that each GEM 63 is around $5 million each,
and it has a much larger and more expensive payload fairing,
and it seems like most estimates are
around the $150 million mark.
So it's somewhere between 109 and 150 million.
The Delta IV heavy costs somewhere around 300 million,
maybe a little bit less,
but that seems to be about the best estimate I could find.
So it's, it's quite expensive.
Vulcan is actually a little more
interesting when it comes to cost.
It's widely reported that Vulcan will cost
around $120 million per launch,
and we do have some real life data to back that up.
A Space Force contract awarded ULA $1.3 billion
for 11 launches for an average of $118 million per launch.
Now, I should add here that this contract also had at least
one Atlas V launch,
and we don't know which specific variants
of Vulcan were used,
but it is a decent average number to work with.
And on that note, space Force also awarded SpaceX a 10
launch deal worth $1.23 billion, which would be an average
of $123 million per launch.
But this would be a mixture of Falcon 9
and Falcon Heavy depending on the performance demands
of those 10 missions.
But it's always wise to remember
that government contracts cost a lot more than commercial
contracts, often due to secrecy
and a lot of other additional requirements.
This is quite a bit above the previously known price
for a Falcon 9, which was about $62 million,
although lately that number seems to be closer
to about $67 million.
But just to make things 10 times more confusing,
SpaceX did launch the IXPE satellite for NASA
who is obviously a government customer for just
$50.3 million.
So again, it kind of proves that there's a lot of margin
and a lot of unknowns in this whole situation
and that these launch providers are often just charging
whatever they can for their services.
So that being said, we'll say a Falcon 9 has been proven
to cost as low as $50 million,
and a standard estimate for Falcon Heavy is
around $100 million for a commercial launch.
But again, when we actually compare the two Space Force
contracts, Vulcan came in pretty competitive,
but actually ended up being cheaper than SpaceX's options.
And again, just please remember, don't take these numbers
to seriously just assume there's some serious discrepancies
and some apples to oranges comparisons.
And just don't be surprised if you try
to buy your own Falcon 9 flight
and they can't guarantee the prices quoted here.
We're just trying to establish an okay-ish baseline
for the purposes of this video,
but I suspect ULA may have had
to lower their prices in order to compete,
whereas I'm guessing SpaceX is able
to make quite a healthy profit off those
Space Force launches.
- Four three, we have ignition.
- Okay, so to summarize here,
I don't wanna spend too much time speculating on the future
of ULA, which sounds like it might be up for sale right now
and Vulcan, because I mean,
that'd just kind of be silly to do.
However, here's some facts.
There are roughly 70 launches contracted to fly on Vulcan,
and that's actually a lot in my opinion as we know, some
of them are Space Force missions
and a handful of other Department
of Defense missions totaling about 20 launches.
And we know there are 38 missions signed for Vulcan
to launch Amazon's KUIPER satellites.
And six more for Dream Chaser missions.
ULA knew their biggest customer
and the the biggest thing they could offer would be high
energy missions for the Department of Defense.
And they basically built a perfectly tailored rocket
for those missions and it certainly paid off
because that national security Space launch
contract proved it.
So the big question is, is it enough?
In my opinion, this is likely one
of the last mass produced expendable launch vehicles
that will be developed and flown from the United States.
But speaking of reusability
and exp, expandability, ULA does have plans for
what they call "SMART" reuse, where they'd recover the engines
by detaching them from the, the booster,
then inflating a hypersonic heat shield
and then splashing down using the heat shield as a sort
of lifeboat until they can be recovered.
Recovery of the full booster isn't really practical due
to the velocity of the booster travels
that stage separation, since they burn
through all the propellant making
re-entry much more difficult.
And for this particular rocket,
propulsive landings are more or less impossible.
But ULA has tested a hypersonic inflatable reentry heat
shield from orbital velocities.
This was a test version of the system they'd be using
for Vulcans BE-4 engines.
However, it's hard to tell when this will actually be
implemented on Vulcan.
Despite this rocket being mostly
a fairly traditional rocket, it's found a way
to be quite capable and fairly price competitive.
However, ULA certainly isn't putting any pressure on SpaceX
to lower their costs.
In fact, it kind
of feels like SpaceX is simply raising their prices
to match ULA's offerings.
And with so many new rockets coming online,
pursuing reusability like Rocket Labs Neutron, Blue Origin's
New Glenn, or fully reusable rockets like Stoke Space's,
rocket and SpaceX Starship, it does bring into question
how long this rocket will be around.
But from ULA's perspective Vulcan makes a ton of sense
as it replaces both the Atlas V, which had
that limited supply of already 180 engines
and the expensive Delta IV Heavy
with just a single rocket.
By focusing on reduced costs
and efficiencies in production,
they have developed a more competitive rocket.
And despite it being relatively simple
and not as ambitious as say a fully reusable rocket,
it still took about five years longer than expected
to actually launch, considering they wanted
to launch it in 2019.
So maybe it's a good thing ULA didn't try
for something even more ambitious with Vulcan,
which might've put them on an even longer timeframe.
And let's say it took them, you know, an additional,
I don't know, three or four
or even five years to develop that could've been too long.
It could've actually been detrimental
and taken the company under.
Now, for me personally, my opinion, I mean,
I was just excited to see a new rocket fly finally.
That was a phenomenal first launch. Are you kidding me?
A moonshot with a payload on it
for your first launch was incredible.
Huge shot out there. I'm also, I was just also excited
to see another methalox rocket fly.
I, I love methalox. It's beautiful.
The beautiful blue flame is, is incredible.
And I'm also just, you know, excited
to see continued investment in the aerospace industry
and people continuing to push and refine these systems.
It's, it's fantastic. However,
I do think the Vulcan will have a limited lifespan
'cause the competition is heating up big time.
Now, in the next few years, I do expect some serious
competition to start forcing both SpaceX
and, you know, ULA to start lowering their prices,
which could make Vulcan vulnerable
to being just simply out-priced.
But until that happens, so can what might be the end
of an era seeing massive,
relatively expensive rockets be sacrificed to Poseidon.
So what do you think, are you excited about Vulcan?
I mean, what'd you think of that first flight?
It was pretty incredible.
Honestly, you, it's hard not
to be excited when a rocket flies
so smoothly for its first launch.
But do you think it's gonna last through the 2020s
and into the 2030s, or do you think it's going
to fly only what's contracted today?
And that's going to be it.
Let me know what you think or if you have any other thoughts
or questions in the comments below.
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Okay, that's gonna do it for me.
I'm Tim Dodd, the everyday astronaut bringing space down
to earth for everyday people.