Planned 10 Vulcan Launches, Delivered Just One: What Went Wrong?
The Ambitious Plan At the start of 2025, ULA had set high hopes: company executives — including CEO Tory Bruno — projected the year could become the busiest ever for ULA, with up to 20 launches planned. Roughly half of those were supposed to be flown by Vulcan, representing a dramatic shift from their legacy rocket, Atlas V. That would signal a clear transition toward a Vulcan-centric future. The logic made sense: Vulcan had recently completed its formal certification with the United States Space Force (USSF) for national-security missions, clearing the way for the new heavy-lift vehicle to carry important payloads. Infrastructure-wise, too: ULA was building out a second vertical integration facility (VIF) and mobile launch platform at their Florida site to enable faster, more frequent processing of rockets — a build-up intended to support the once-every-two-weeks cadence they envisioned. What Actually Happened Despite the optimism, the actual numbers fell well short of the tar...
