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The “Centaur” upper stage of the “Vulcan” rocket is powered by two RL10C-X engines
[Space News, 11 April] Aerojet Rocketdyne announced on 11 April that it had secured an order from United Launch Alliance (ULA) for 116 engines to be used in the upper stage of the latter’s “Vulcan-Centaur” rocket. The company stated that this is the largest order for RL10 engines it has received to date.
This bulk procurement of rocket engines comes against the backdrop of Amazon’s announcement on 5 April that it had selected ArianeSpace, Blue Origin and ULA to launch up to 3,236 satellites for its ‘Kuiper Project’ broadband constellation. ULA CEO Bruno stated that the company intends to conduct the maiden flight of the “Vulcan” by the end of this year. Speaking at a space symposium last week, he noted that securing the Amazon contract would more than double the “Vulcan”’s annual launch frequency to as many as 25 missions, and that the company would ramp up production capacity to meet this demand.
ULA decided back in 2018 to use the RL10C-X variant of the RL10 as the upper stage engine for the Vulcan. The company’s older rocket models, the Atlas V and the Heavy Delta 4 (Delta 4H), also utilise engines from the RL10 series. Over the past 60 years, more than 450 RL10 engines have been used on various legacy ULA rocket models.
Following a congressional mandate for the US military to end its reliance on the Russian-made RD-180 engines used in the Atlas V first stage, ULA announced in 2015 that it would develop the next-generation “Vulcan-Centaur” rocket, ultimately selecting Blue Origin’s BE-4 as the first-stage engine.
