ULA sets Nov. 13 return to flight for Vulcan after nine-month grounding
United Launch Alliance · Amazon · Northrop Grumman
ULA will return Vulcan to flight Nov. 13, flying the rocket's first Amazon Leo mission after a nine-month grounding.
what happened
United Launch Alliance said Oct. 28 it will return its Vulcan rocket to flight on Nov. 13, nine months after a solid rocket booster nozzle failure grounded the vehicle following its February USSF-87 mission, per SpaceflightNow. The mission will be Vulcan's fifth flight overall, the first fitted with six strap-on solid rocket boosters, and will carry 40 satellites for Amazon's Leo broadband constellation, the first of 38 Vulcan flights Amazon has booked to deploy the bulk of its network, per Ars Technica. ULA said the rocket will fly a redesigned booster nozzle intended to fix the anomaly, per SpaceNews.
why it matters
A firm return-to-flight date, if it holds, starts clearing a backlog that has stalled both Amazon's Leo buildout and the US Space Force launches that depend on Vulcan; Northrop Grumman and ULA have already absorbed hundreds of millions of dollars in charges and a $500 million loan guarantee tied to the grounding, so resuming flights on schedule matters to ULA's own balance sheet as much as to its customers.
signal-to-noise
quick facts
- Companies
- United Launch Alliance, Amazon, Northrop Grumman
- Category
- launch
- Impact
- notable
- SNR
- 3 / 5
- Event date
- 2026-10-28
- Published
- 2026-10-28 23:07 UTC