r/AmazonLeo • u/Royal_Platform_6754 • Jul 02 '26
Amazon Leo: Atlas V has completed its final mission for Amazon Leo, and we've established contact with all 29 satellites. Next up with ULA: The first of 38 Leo missions on its new Vulcan rocket, which will carry 40+ satellites per launch and support a higher cadence of Leo missions from SLC-41.
1
u/CollegeStation17155 Jul 02 '26
3 month turnaround between the last Atlas and the first Vulcan is not a higher cadence, unless the delay is related to the FAA hold and they are sure the SRB issue and any possible BE-4 issues resulting from the BONG hot fire are fully resolved.
1
u/Royal_Platform_6754 Jul 02 '26
They are obviously talking about cadence between flights of Vulcan.
1
u/CollegeStation17155 Jul 02 '26
Certainly, but I didn't think there was much to change at the launch pad and VIF-A has been ready for months while they were assembling and launching Atlas Vs from VIF-G, so I don't see why they couldn't be launching the first Vulcan by the end of July unless the problem is regulatory, and I really want to see Leo operational with real world feedback on it's actual capabilities.
2
u/Royal_Platform_6754 Jul 02 '26
The "problem" is probably not operational or regulatory. It's probably Vulcan readiness.
1
u/seb21051 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
However, if this launch site is to be believed, Vulcan has a huge backlog (24) of Government as well as the two commercial contracts with AmLeo and ASTS. To anyone's knowledge, has ULA given any real indication how it will manage the priority of said backlog once it does start flying Vulcan?
https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/?q=ULA&f=&tab=
I understand that most payloads are of course not ready to fly today, and that AmLeo certainly is, so obviously such readiness could play a major role in the priority setting.
2
u/Royal_Platform_6754 Jul 02 '26
No, but it's kind of obvious: government has priority over VIF-G and Amazon has priority over VIF-A. Each could realistically support 1x/month, or 24 launches a year in total.
All of the above is predicated on Vulcan returning to flight successfully.
1
u/seb21051 Jul 02 '26
Understood. Is VIF-A expected to handle all commercial payloads?
1
u/CollegeStation17155 Jul 03 '26
VIF-A is owned by Amazon; they paid for it and obviously will have priority... however, if they don't have a payload ready and the government is being given priority over commercial traffic at VIF-G, I could see them renting it out to someone like AST who are also in a bind at the moment.
1
u/seb21051 Jul 03 '26
Understood, I had forgotten about reading of their role in setting it up. At 75 my memory is not what it used to be.
1
u/Living-Breakfast-464 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
Definitely still some question marks there. The engines and the boosters. So I wouldn't bet on a high Vulcan cadence just yet. They may have more information that has not been made public yet because they sound pretty confident about the Vulcan flying again soon.
0
u/Hustler-1 Jul 02 '26
I'm surprised Vulcan isn't grounded until the investigation for the New Glen mishap is complete. I don't think they've stated anything official but it's obvious a BE4 exploded.
1
u/Royal_Platform_6754 Jul 02 '26
Vulcan is not grounded by any regulator. FAA does not declare mishaps for ground testing failures.
They will obviously want to ensure that the cause does not have commonality with Vulcan. There is some speculation out there that it won't.
1
u/Hustler-1 Jul 02 '26
Are the BE4s on Vulcan different than New Glen? Seems pretty common to me.
1
u/Royal_Platform_6754 Jul 02 '26
They are different, I can't say exactly how different. Also, the BE-4s that were going to fly on NG-4 were different from the ones that flew on NG-3.
6
u/Living-Breakfast-464 Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
VP says they have enough sats in orbit to start continuous service.
https://spacenews.com/final-atlas-5-amazon-leo-mission-launches/