The United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur rocket should finally lift off for the first time next month. Can it compete with SpaceX?
A new rocket will soon take to the skies, the Vulcan.
联合发射联盟的火神半人马座火箭最终将于下个月首次升空。它能与 SpaceX 竞争吗？一种新型火箭 Vulcan 即将升空。
It’s the latest vehicle from the long-standing United Launch Alliance (ULA), which once held a near monopoly on military launches and planetary missions for NASA, but has since been usurped, and is now up for sale. ULA is hoping its new fleet of vehicles will offer healthy competition in today’s launch market.
它是历史悠久的联合发射联盟 (ULA) 的最新运载工具，该联盟曾经几乎垄断了 NASA 的军事发射和行星任务，但后来被篡夺，现在正在出售。 ULA 希望其新车队能够在当今的上市市场中提供良性竞争。
There’s little doubt who the major player is right now. In 2023, Elon Musk’s company SpaceX launched 96 times, accounting for more than 90% of US orbital launches this year. Their Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets dominate the launch market and, if successful, their upcoming Starship rocket might surpass that mantle.
毫无疑问，现在的主要参与者是谁。 2023 年，埃隆·马斯克的公司 SpaceX 发射了 96 次，占今年美国轨道发射的 90% 以上。他们的猎鹰 9 号和猎鹰重型火箭在发射市场上占据主导地位，如果成功，他们即将推出的星舰火箭可能会超越这一地位。
ULA, however, has been ever-present in US launch for two decades, since forming as a merger between Boeing and Lockheed Martin in 2006. Its Atlas and Delta series of rockets have been used for a wide variety of government and commercial missions, with more than 150 launches over 17 years. Some notable highlights include the launch of NASA’s Perseverance rover to Mars in July 2020 and the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sampling mission launched in September 2016. Now the company is up for sale, with three bidders in the running — one of which is Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.
然而，自 2006 年波音公司和洛克希德·马丁公司合并成立以来，ULA 已经在美国发射领域持续存在了二十年之久。其 Atlas 和 Delta 系列火箭已广泛用于各种政府和商业任务， 17 年来发布了 150 多次。一些值得注意的亮点包括 2020 年 7 月向火星发射 NASA 的毅力号火星车以及 2016 年 9 月启动的 OSIRIS-REx 小行星采样任务。现在该公司正在出售，有三名竞标者，其中之一是杰夫·贝佐斯 (Jeff Bezos) 的公司蓝色起源。
Partly due to the dominance of SpaceX and a changing market, ULA has focused its efforts on a new rocket — Vulcan Centaur — these past few years. The company is phasing out both its Atlas V and Delta IV rockets, the last of those two fleets, with the inaugural launch of Vulcan set for next week. Unfortunately for ULA, the launch has been beset by delays. “It’s been a long time coming,” says Phil Smith, a space industry analyst at the US firm BryceTech.
部分由于 SpaceX 的主导地位和不断变化的市场，ULA 在过去几年将精力集中在一种新型火箭——Vulcan Centaur 上。该公司正在逐步淘汰阿特拉斯五号和德尔塔四号火箭，这是这两支火箭中的最后一支，火神号的首次发射定于下周进行。不幸的是，对于 ULA 来说，发布一直受到延误的困扰。美国 BryceTech 公司航天工业分析师菲尔·史密斯 (Phil Smith) 表示：“这已经等了很长时间了。”
Vulcan was supposed to launch in 2019, but numerous issues have pushed back that date, including problems with the rocket’s oxygen and methane BE-4 engines, supplied by Blue Origin, with one engine exploding during a test in June. Those engines will ultimately end ULA’s reliance on the Russian built-engines used on its previous rockets, a partnership that ended following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Vulcan 原定于 2019 年发射，但由于诸多问题推迟了该日期，其中包括蓝色起源提供的火箭氧气和甲烷 BE-4 发动机出现问题，其中一台发动机在 6 月份的测试中发生爆炸。这些发动机将最终结束 ULA 对其之前火箭所使用的俄罗斯内置发动机的依赖，这种合作关系在俄罗斯 2014 年吞并克里米亚和 2022 年入侵乌克兰后结束。
A two-stage rocket measuring 202 feet tall, Vulcan will be capable of lifting up to 60,000 pounds to orbit. Tory Bruno, ULA’s CEO, said in a press call on November 15 that Vulcan was “very highly optimized” for reaching high orbits, noting the rocket was “much more capable, much more affordable and has a lot of flexibility” compared to ULA’s previous rockets.
Vulcan 是一款高 202 英尺的两级火箭，能够将重达 60,000 磅的物体送入轨道。 ULA 首席执行官托里·布鲁诺 (Tory Bruno) 在 11 月 15 日的新闻发布会上表示，Vulcan 为到达高轨道进行了“非常高度优化”，并指出与 ULA 之前的火箭相比，该火箭“能力更强、价格更实惠且具有很大的灵活性”火箭。
Signifying that is its first launch, known as the Cert-1 mission — it is one of two certification missions required to launch national security missions — which will liftoff from Cape Canaveral in Florida no earlier than January 8. The primary payload on board is the Peregrine lunar lander, a nearly 3,000-pound machine that will touch down on the Moon equipped with various instruments, built by the US firm Astrobotic Technology and partly funded by NASA. Also on board is a “memorial spacecraft” from the US firm Celestis, called Voyager, which will carry human DNA and ashes into orbit around the Sun.
这意味着这是它的首次发射，称为 Cert-1 任务，它是启动国家安全任务所需的两项认证任务之一，将于 1 月 8 日之前从佛罗里达州卡纳维拉尔角升空。机上的主要有效载荷是Peregrine 月球着陆器是一台重近 3,000 磅的机器，将在月球上着陆，配备各种仪器，由美国 Astrobotic Technology 公司建造，部分由 NASA 资助。船上还有一艘来自美国 Celestis 公司的“纪念飞船”，名为 Voyager，它将携带人类 DNA 和骨灰进入绕太阳轨道。
ULA’s ultimate goal is to launch two Vulcan rockets every month by the latter half of 2025, said Bruno. The rocket will not compete with SpaceX on reusability, with ULA opting only to attempt recovering and reusing the rocket’s first-stage engines, rather than the entire vehicle. However, according to Bruno, the rocket will still be competitive with SpaceX; it already has a “backlog of 70 Vulcan launches” over the next five years worth billions of dollars, including customers such as Amazon, which has booked multiple Vulcan launches to fly satellites for its Project Kuiper space internet mega constellation to rival SpaceX’s Starlink.
布鲁诺表示，ULA 的最终目标是到 2025 年下半年每月发射两枚火神火箭。该火箭不会在可重复使用性方面与 SpaceX 竞争，ULA 选择仅尝试回收和重复使用火箭的第一级发动机，而不是整个火箭。不过，布鲁诺表示，该火箭仍将与 SpaceX 竞争；该公司已经在未来五年内“积压了 70 次 Vulcan 发射”，价值数十亿美元，其中包括亚马逊等客户，该公司已预订多次 Vulcan 发射，为其柯伊伯项目太空互联网巨型星座发射卫星，与 SpaceX 的星链相媲美。
“The global launch industry has changed its character in the last 18 months,” said Bruno. “There’s more demand for launch than there are global launch vehicles available to do it, partly because of the withdrawal of Russia, and also because of the introduction of these mega constellations.”
“过去 18 个月里，全球发射行业的性质发生了变化，”布鲁诺说。 “发射的需求比全球可用的运载火箭还要多，部分原因是俄罗斯的退出，也因为这些巨型星座的引入。”
Phil Smith believes the rocket can be competitive “but a couple of things need to happen” before that is the case. “One is it has to work,” he says. “Then it will prove itself out in the contracts that it’s got.” While ULA is unlikely to be able to compete with SpaceX on price, currently around $2,000 per kilogram for Musk’s company, additional factors such as reliability will be important. “There are other ways to evaluate competitiveness,” says Smith. “Customers don’t just look at pricing. Maybe Starship will be too much bang for your buck. Maybe you prefer the Vulcan Centaur for a particular mission type.”
菲尔·史密斯相信火箭可以具有竞争力，“但在此之前需要发生一些事情”。 “一是它必须有效，”他说。 “然后它将在它所获得的合同中证明自己。”虽然 ULA 不太可能在价格上与 SpaceX 竞争，目前马斯克公司的价格约为每公斤 2,000 美元，但可靠性等其他因素也很重要。 “还有其他方法来评估竞争力，”史密斯说。 “客户不仅仅关注价格。也许星际飞船对你来说太划算了。也许您更喜欢使用火神半人马来执行特定的任务类型。”
“Havingthat mixofvehicles isimportant.”
ULA’s long-standing success in launching rockets might also play a part and could be a key selling point to one of its potential suitors.
“拥有这种混合车辆很重要。” ULA 在发射火箭方面的长期成功也可能发挥一定作用，并可能成为其潜在追求者之一的关键卖点。
“If I were buying a space business, I’d go look at ULA,” Bruno told Bloomberg in an interview in October. “It’s already had all the hard work done through the transformation. You’re not buying a Victorian with bad plumbing. It’s all been done. You’re coming in at the end of the remodel, so you can focus on your future.”
“如果我要购买太空业务，我会去看看 ULA，”布鲁诺在 10 月份接受彭博社采访时说道。 “转型过程中的所有艰苦工作已经完成。你不会买一个管道很差的维多利亚时代的房子。一切都已经完成了。你将在改造结束后进来，这样你就可以专注于你的未来。”
All eyes will be on next week's Vulcan launch and any impact it might have on a potential sale. Having once dominated the US launch market, ULA is now undoubtedly playing catchup to SpaceX and will hope Vulcan can be its new poster child as it seeks to reestablish itself as a major player. Doing so is beneficial not just to ULA, but for American launch as a whole, too.
所有的目光都将集中在下周的 Vulcan 发布以及它对潜在销售可能产生的任何影响。 ULA 曾经在美国发射市场占据主导地位，现在无疑正在追赶 SpaceX，并希望 Vulcan 能够成为其新的典型代表，以重新确立自己作为主要参与者的地位。这样做不仅对 ULA 有利，而且对整个美国的发射也有利。
“We’re always excited when a new vehicle comes online,” says Smith. “We need competition.”
“当新车上线时，我们总是很兴奋，”史密斯说。 “我们需要竞争。”
Track the maiden flight of ULA's Vulcan rocket with Astrobotic's Peregrine Lunar Lander by downloading the Supercluster App for iPhone and Android.
下载适用于 iPhone 和 Android 的 Supercluster 应用程序，跟踪 ULA 的 Vulcan 火箭与 Astrobotic 的 Peregrine 月球着陆器的首次飞行。
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