Early Monday morning ULA plans to launch its first of two certification missions for its Vulcan rocket. What does this have to do with SpaceX‘s CEO Elon Musk? Well after a prediction made over five years ago, he’s now safe from an eating your hat moment.

週一清晨，ULA 計劃為其 Vulcan 火箭啟動兩項認證任務中的第一項。這與 SpaceX 執行長馬斯克有什麼關係？經過五年多前的預測，他現在已經安全了，不會吃掉你的帽子。

Musk on Vulcan’s timeline

In a tweet dug up by Eric Berger, back in 2018 Musk talked about ULA pricing and the eventual development of its competitor’s Vulcan rocket. “I will seriously eat my hat with a side of mustard if that rocket flies a national security spacecraft before 2023,” Musk said.

馬斯克談 Vulcan 的時間線 在 Eric Berger 挖掘的一條推文中，早在 2018 年，馬斯克就談到了 ULA 的定價及其競爭對手 Vulcan 火箭的最終開發。馬斯克表示：“如果這枚火箭在 2023 年之前搭載國家安全航天器，我會心生芥蒂。”

Discussion of a new rocket began as soon as ULA was formed in 2006 from the merger of Boeing‘s and Lockheed Martin‘s launch teams. However, Vulcan wasn’t formally announced until 2014 in light of political attacks for Atlas V’s reliance on the Russian made RD-180 engine.

2006 年，波音公司和洛克希德馬丁公司的發射團隊合併成立 ULA 後，關於新型火箭的討論就開始了。然而，由於 Atlas V 依賴俄羅斯製造的 RD-180 引擎而受到政治攻擊，Vulcan 直到 2014 年才正式宣布。

Early updates had Vulcan’s debut for 2019 but were quickly delayed to 2020. One of the first items to be marked as a problem was with the new US produced engine being developed by Blue Origin, now known as the BE-4. The GAO’s report in 2021 noted it was “experiencing technical challenges related to the igniter and booster capabilities required.”

Vulcan 的早期更新於 2019 年首次亮相，但很快就被推遲到 2020 年。最先被標記為問題的項目之一是 Blue Origin 開發的美國生產的新引擎（現在稱為 BE-4）。 GAO 在 2021 年的報告中指出，它「正在經歷與所需的點火器和助推器功能相關的技術挑戰」。

The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 and 2021 forced even more delays both across the industry but also to ULA’s first Vulcan customer. Astrobotic‘s Peregrine lander would be delayed several years because of the pandemic and other technical issues.

2020 年和 2021 年的 COVID-19 大流行迫使整個行業以及 ULA 的第一個 Vulcan 客戶遭受更多延誤。由於疫情和其他技術問題，Astrobotic 的 Peregrine 登陸器將被推遲幾年。

Add in the addition of developing the Centaur V, Vulcan was originally designed to use an Atlas V variant Centaur III, and then its redesign in 2023, you get a launch date of January 8, 2024.

除了開發 Centaur V 之外，Vulcan 最初設計是使用 Atlas V 的變體 Centaur III，然後在 2023 年重新設計，發布日期為 2024 年 1 月 8 日。

Not sure what information Musk had at the time, or was just a good guess, but what a prediction.

不確定馬斯克當時掌握了什麼訊息，或者只是一個很好的猜測，但這是一個多麼好的預測。

Vulcan to launch NSSL mission this year?

Following a hopefully successful launch of Peregrine Mission One, Vulcan’s second certification mission will fly the first Dream Chaser spaceplane.

Vulcan 今年將啟動 NSSL 任務？繼「遊隼一號」任務成功發射後，Vulcan 的第二個認證任務將駕駛第一架「追夢者」太空飛機。

This was also a mission heavily delayed by both COVID and development problems. However, the Dream Chaser slated for flight is finishing up final testing before it flies a demo mission to the ISS.

這也是一項因新冠疫情和發展問題而嚴重延遲的任務。然而，計畫飛行的追夢者號正在完成最後的測試，然後飛往國際太空站進行示範任務。

Once these two certification missions are complete, the Space Force will then allow ULA to fly national security payloads using Vulcan. First up will be GPS III SV07, which in a Space Systems Command report from September, shows a launch no earlier than June 2024.

一旦這兩項認證任務完成，太空軍將允許 ULA 使用 Vulcan 飛行國家安全有效載荷。首先是 GPS III SV07，在 9 月的太空系統司令部報告中顯示，它的發射時間不早於 2024 年 6 月。

If ULA didn’t run into any problems at the beginning of 2023, we might just have had a repeat of Rocket Lab’s Peter Beck dining on a hat. Amazon could have moved its two demo Kuiper satellites back onto Vulcan for its second flight. Although if there would have been time for the Space Force’s GPS satellite to be integrated and launched is not known.

如果 ULA 在 2023 年初沒有遇到任何問題，我們可能會重演火箭實驗室的彼得貝克 (Peter Beck) 在帽子上吃飯的故事。亞馬遜本可以將其兩顆演示柯伊伯衛星移回火神星進行第二次飛行。不過，尚不清楚太空部隊的 GPS 衛星是否有時間整合並發射。