Key facts
- The November 13 return-to-flight mission will carry 40 satellites for Amazon's Leo broadband constellation at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
- Nozzle failures occurred on solid rocket boosters during two of Vulcan's first four missions, including the most recent flight in February.
- The U.S. Space Force approved Vulcan for national security launches in 2025, and ULA flew two missions on the vehicle before it was grounded following the February booster incident.
- Military officials will closely examine Vulcan's return-to-flight mission and review commercial launch data before permitting ULA to resume national security flights.
ULA said Wednesday it will return Vulcan to service on November 13 with 40 Amazon Leo satellites launching from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. ULA said Amazon has booked 38 Vulcan flights for most of its satellite network deployment, and this mission is the first.
Vulcan has been out of service since February 12, 2026, following a solid rocket booster anomaly on the USSF-87 mission. The rocket reached orbit despite a visible nozzle failure on one Northrop Grumman GEM 63XL booster soon after liftoff, leading to a comprehensive technical review and grounding. Booster nozzle failures occurred on two of Vulcan’s first four missions, including the February flight, and U.S. Space Force officials, who are ULA’s primary customer, lost confidence in Vulcan following the February incident.
Engineers at ULA identified several possible causes of the February booster anomaly and lessened their impact through changes to nozzle design and manufacturing processes. The November 13 flight will use the improved nozzle design as further testing and analysis proceed with the mission to help all customers. Flying the upgraded nozzle generates useful flight data that confirms the improvements and benefits every customer, ULA said.
On November 13, Vulcan will fly with all six solid rocket boosters together for the first time. The stack uses an extended payload fairing for Amazon’s 40 Leo satellites and a shortened Centaur upper stage configured for low Earth orbit flights for the first time, making the vehicle 67.4 meters tall overall.
Vulcan won approval for national security launches in 2025, and ULA flew two missions before the February booster incident grounded the vehicle. The Defense Department counts on ULA’s Vulcan rocket for about half of its major launches through the early 2030s. Before allowing ULA to resume national security flights, military officials plan to study the return-to-flight mission and review commercial launch data. UA.NEWS reports that Vulcan will carry at least two Amazon Leo missions before the next national security launch.
ULA delays led the U.S. Space Force to shift six national security missions away from Vulcan to SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets to speed up execution. The change protected national security launch schedules and prevented revenue penalties for ULA during the grounding period.
ULA assumed six future launches previously assigned to SpaceX, part of the Space Force’s plan to protect national security launch timelines without cutting contractor revenue during the grounding. On October 21, 2026, the Space Force said six national security missions had moved from ULA to SpaceX while Vulcan remains grounded. Space Systems Command’s Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant disclosed the manifest changes during an industry briefing and voiced confidence that Vulcan will eventually return to flight, though he set no official return date.
Investigators linked the first similar nozzle case, in 2024, to a manufacturing defect in an insulator that guards the nozzle’s metal structure against hot exhaust gases. The USSF-87 nozzle failure involved one Northrop Grumman GEM 63XL booster and represented the second nozzle-related irregularity across four flights after a similar observation during the Cert-2 demonstration of late 2024. Officials temporarily suspended operational defense payloads once the vehicle recorded a second nozzle-related irregularity across four flights. ULA and Northrop Grumman have not publicly identified the final cause of the latest failure.
Before Space Systems Command clears the vehicle for operational defense launches, ULA and Northrop Grumman are running structural analyses and hot-fire tests to verify booster nozzle integrity. Space Systems Command’s Lt. Gen. Philip Garrant declined to share interim findings from the investigation board and set no firm launch target during the October 21, 2026 briefing. ULA said more testing and analysis will continue alongside the November 13 mission as engineers return the vehicle to service.
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