WASHINGTON — Despite cutting its forecast for launches this year, United Launch Alliance still expects to ramp up to an annual rate of 20 to 25 launches in 2026 and beyond.
ULA announced Aug. 5 that the first national security launch of its Vulcan rocket, and the third overall, is scheduled for Aug. 12 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Neither ULA nor the U.S. Space Force have disclosed the payloads for the USSF-106 mission, although one is believed to be the Navigation Technology Satellite (NTS) 3 spacecraft.
In an Aug. 7 call with reporters, ULA Chief Executive Tory Bruno called the upcoming launch a “quintessential example” of Vulcan’s capabilities, with the rocket deploying the payloads directly into geostationary orbit rather than a transfer orbit. He did note that the mission is carrying two payloads, but did not identify them.
“This is, in fact, the anchor case that drove the design and architecture of the whole rocket,” he said. “This is a tough mission.”
USSF-106 is the first Vulcan launch since the Space Force certified the vehicle in March. That certification was delayed by an investigation into an issue on the second Vulcan launch, Cert-2, in October 2024, when the nozzle came off one of the two solid rocket boosters about half a minute after liftoff. That investigation concluded a manufacturing defect in one of the internal parts of the nozzle caused the loss of the nozzle.
While ULA obtained the certification in March, it is only now, more than four months later, that Vulcan is ready to launch its first national security mission. Bruno said the process of resolving the nozzle issue contributed to the delay in the launch, along with “synchronizing again with the customer’s spacecraft.”
That delay has resulted in a depressed launch forecast for ULA this year. In March, Bruno projected a dozen launches this year, split roughly evenly between Vulcan and Atlas, itself down from projections in 2024 of 20 launches in 2025. However, in a recent CNBC interview, Bruno said he estimated 2025 would come in “about half” of that 2024 projection, or about 10 launches.
In the media call, Bruno said ULA was now forecasting nine launches this year. About two thirds of those will be for Amazon and other commercial customers, including two Atlas 5 launches of Amazon’s Project Kuiper launches that took place in April and June. The other third will be national security missions.
He said ULA will try to group launches, such as performing two or three Atlas missions in a row before switching to Vulcan, or vice versa. The next national security mission for Vulcan is USSF-87, but Bruno didn’t offer a date for it, and said it’s possible the company might perform an Atlas launch between USSF-106 and USSF-87.
Despite the delays in in the first Vulcan national security launch, Bruno said the company still plans to get to a cadence of two launches a month by the end of the year. That would put the company on track to conduct 20 to 25 launches in 2026, with a similar number projected for 2027.
That manifest of launches is largely booked. “In 2026, it’s pretty crowded. Someone would have to drop out of line in order for us to make a slot for someone else,” he said. “As we go into ’27, it’s really the same story.”
“We are in that good problem to have of having more customers wanting to ride on this rocket than is easy to accommodate,” he said.
Bruno suggested it may be possible to increase that launch rate slightly after 2026 as the company gains experience with vehicle operations. “We would hope to have more flexibility going forward,” he said, such as the ability to surge to 30 launches annually.
Going beyond 30, though, will require infrastructure improvements. While he announced no plans to do so, he noted increasing launch from national security missions, including the Golden Dome missile defense system, and from commercial broadband constellations. “There is going to be an expanding demand for space launch for the foreseeable future, well into the next decade,” he concluded.