Hacker News

Vulcan rocket fails during return-to-flight launch, 40 Amazon satellites lost

88 points by jonbaer ago | 40 comments

allenrb |next [-]

I’ve been a huge SpaceX fan since back when they were failing to reach orbit with Falcon 1. That said, we (the US, the planet) need more than one successful launch provider. Even Elon (of whom I’m not such a fan) has said things along these lines.

ULA went conservative with the Vulcan design before it was entirely obvious how good Falcon 9 would end up being. And then they’re having awful teething problems anyway. I also wonder if we’re seeing the beginning of the end for them. It’s clear imho that Boeing & Lockheed don’t want to make the kind of investment that would put them back in the front row.

If this is a BE-4 issue, ouch. Really hoping it’s something else in the system if it does turn out to be a booster stage issue.

noideawhatididt |root |parent |next [-]

The issue happened after successful separation, which would exclude BE-4 engines from the issue.

hughes |root |parent [-]

I wouldn't rule it out. First stage underperformance could lead to a second stage issue.

GMoromisato |root |parent [-]

This is my suspicion right now. Booster engine cut off was 40 minutes late relative to timelines and stage separate happened lower and at a slower speed than expected.

ericcumbee |root |parent |next [-]

The timeline was identical to that of the last LEO flight on Atlas Centaur. Which while possible seems suspicious to me. So I would take the timeline with a grain of salt.

SyzygyRhythm |root |parent |previous [-]

I think you mean 40 seconds late :-). 40 minutes late would be very impressive!

pj_mukh |root |parent |previous [-]

The real question is how do you build an enduring organization doing complex technical work “at the front row” while not being a cult of personality?

allenrb |root |parent [-]

I am not sure if you do, tbh. I’d like to think it’s possible. Having a charismatic focal point sure seems to make it easier, based on observation of the world around us.

Alive-in-2025 |next |previous [-]

Dang it. I feel a sense of despair about yet another failure. We need multiple providers for rockets. I know this is incredibly difficult, endless failures in this difficult world.

Since a lot of the rest of the US space world is struggling to successfully launch, it will be even more of a loss when space x stops the falcon. How much of this is coming from combining and revamping huge existing space companies with a lot of legacy and practies?

GMoromisato |root |parent |next [-]

I'm with you--space is hard, but Vulcan was supposed to be the easy, reliable rocket.

I'm worried that this is a problem with the BE-4 engines, in which case, New Glenn is also affected.

colsandurz |root |parent |next |previous [-]

Don’t worry, AST Space Mobile will have reusable rockets in only two years.

GMoromisato |root |parent [-]

Warning: Sarcasm Detected.

ericmay |root |parent |previous [-]

> We need multiple providers for rockets.

We have that? SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab to name a few I can think of.

> Since a lot of the rest of the US space world is struggling to successfully launch

Can you walk me through how you are arriving at this conclusion?

GMoromisato |root |parent |next [-]

SpaceX is retiring the Falcon 9 and not currently selling rides on Starship.

ULA and Blue Origin are recovering from anomalies, and ULA uses Blue Origin engines, so if there is a problem with BE-4 both companies are affected.

Rocket Lab's rocket is small and cannot launch either Leo satellites or the major national security payloads.

No other US launch vehicles are currently operational.

k0morebi |root |parent |next [-]

Rocket lab will have a new medium sized rocket by end of year / early 2027 fwiw

ChickeNES |root |parent [-]

RL can't even successfully make a first stage tank yet for Neutron, and they've already said first launch is now in "2027" without specifying a quarter. It's definitely not going to be ready by the end of the year, that's for sure.

andrewl-hn |root |parent |next |previous [-]

Space X will probably have to keep Falcon 9 around for a while for human spaceflight to ISS, no?

GMoromisato |root |parent [-]

They are contractually obligated to fly up to ISS until 2030 or so. But they are not obligated to sign new contracts nor are they currently selling rides on Falcon 9 to commercial customers (all future flights are booked).

Will they offer launch on Starship to NASA and commercial customers? TBD, but SpaceX is making so much money on Starlink that they have no financial incentive to do so. They make more money launching their own Starlink satellites than anyone else is willing to pay.

ericmay |root |parent |previous [-]

Thanks - that makes more sense, but the OP was being quite general which is why I asked the question.

Polizeiposaune |root |parent |next |previous [-]

Today's anomaly is just the latest in a series of anomalies for ULA's Vulcan. (previously the solid fueled boosters were losing their nozzles).

Blue Origin blew up a rocket on the pad in May and hasn't launched since.

Rocket Lab's medium lift rocket (Neutron) hasn't launched yet and its Electron is too small for most payloads.

dylan604 |root |parent [-]

> Blue Origin blew up a rocket on the pad in May and hasn't launched since.

Yeah, it's hard to launch when you blew up your pad. Even if they had another rocket ready to go, you've blown up your pad so it doesn't matter.

djeastm |root |parent |previous [-]

SpaceX has carried about 1,787 of the 2,300 tons launched worldwide this year, or 78%.

https://www.flightatlas.org/history/2026/statistics

GMoromisato |next |previous [-]

ArsTechnica has a very good write up on the failure: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/11/vulcan-rocket-fails-du...

dmix |next |previous [-]

Launch stream from ULA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM5A1ZO9oh8

Seems to cut off near the end for some PR video and doesn't mention anything.

lanewinfield |root |parent [-]

You can actually see a moment at 58:06 in the YouTube video (https://youtu.be/qM5A1ZO9oh8?t=3486) where it switches in the upper right from Live Data to No Data, which is at about the ~+9:24 point. Which somewhat matches the report that it "suffered an anomaly 10 minutes into the flight."

childintime |next |previous [-]

Amazon had a deadline, now waived, to deploy over 1600 satellites by the end of last July. Now they need to deploy over 3200 satellites by the end of July, 2029. They are so far behind they need to buy RocketLab?

noideawhatididt |root |parent [-]

Rocketlab (neutron) isn't operational yet, far from it. More of Ariane 6 is most likely. The deadline is a floating one, mainly because i think the military see multiple SAT constellations as a national security priority, they have Starlink but thats not enough, 1 is none, 2 is 1.

GMoromisato |next |previous [-]

Eric Berger reports that the fault is likely in the booster stage, not the Centaur upper-stage and not the solid-rocket motors. The means it's either the Vulcan rocket or (more worryingly) the Blue Origin BE-4 engines. If it's the latter, this might also delay the next flight of New Glenn and possibly risk the timelines of the Artemis program.[1]

Irene Klotz reports that this set of BE-4 engines were modified after the New Glenn pad explosion. Specifically, they modified the oxygen valves, which were blamed for the hotfire anomaly (pro-tip: it's always the fucking valves).[2]

The booster shut down about 40 seconds later than the expected timeline, which implies that it had an extra 40 seconds of fuel relative to expectations. It is possible that the modifications somehow caused an under-performance of the booster, which would doom the mission.

[1] https://x.com/SciGuySpace/status/2122070802971385977

[2] https://x.com/Free_Space/status/2122067780543672603

sbuttgereit |root |parent [-]

I watched the launch until shortly after the solid-rocket booster separation. Up through the booster separation, things looked pretty good. The boosters didn't have any obvious anomaly and nothing was said in the commentary ~ minute after SRB separation.

I tuned out at that point thinking they had gotten past the hard parts. Genuinely surprised to see this news in post.

GMoromisato |root |parent [-]

Agreed--everything looked good. Booster engine cut-off was ~40 seconds late, though, and stage separation happened lower and at a slower speed than normal. I think at that point, something happened with the Centaur/payload. Either it couldn't handle the aerodynamic forces or maybe it deviated from the corridor and FTS fired.

The ULA animation also showed some strange rotation at stage sep and maybe even a faring bump the Centaur (knocking it off a bit).

Maybe the underperformance of the booster left the upper stage too low and atmospheric drag caused problems at stage separation.

pimlottc |next |previous [-]

“An anomaly”? What actually happened, did it explode? Crash? Burn up in the atmosphere?

wat10000 |root |parent [-]

The first stage seems to have some sort of problem which resulted in it being lower and slower than it needed to be when the second stage separated. The second stage and payload would have fallen back into the atmosphere and burned up

themgt |next |previous [-]

Might honestly be the end of ULA. This is quite a disaster given how shaky everything already was.

And it's another 8 lengths back to Pvt. Smiles (ULA) who is trailing the field ... SpaceX is widening now! He is moving like a tremendous machine! ... Blue is dropping back ... But SpaceX is all alone!

2020s space race, visualized https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfCMtaNiMDM

trothamel |root |parent [-]

Probably not ULA entirely for as long as they make Centaur - which was selected as the new upper stage for SLS. They also have a decent number of contracts with Amazon, and also with NASA to bring Starliner to the station.

I wouldn't be surprised if Vulcan goes away, and they survive for a decade on those, and disappear (bought out by Blue or someone else) when SLS is replaced by New Glenn or Starship.

skissane |root |parent [-]

I remember Boeing and Lockheed were trying to sell ULA, but couldn't get a buyer – I presume they were asking for more $$$ than any potential buyer thought ULA was worth.

But maybe events like this might motivate them to reconsider, and be willing to cut the price to the point someone is willing to buy them, e.g. Blue Origin.

shaaaade |previous [-]

That's a success in my books, 40 less pieces of space junk floating about in low earth orbit.

simonh |root |parent [-]

Thus preserving that valuable vacuum for… reasons?

sudonem |root |parent |previous [-]

Well…. Astronomy for one thing.

GMoromisato |root |parent [-]

Astronomy should be done from space, above the photon-distorting atmosphere and away from all the radio-energy interference.