To Rival SpaceX’s Starship, ULA Eyes Vulcan Rocket Upgrade

Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United Launch Alliance's next-generation Vulcan rocket is launched for the second time on a certification test flight from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, October 4, 2024. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo
Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United Launch Alliance's next-generation Vulcan rocket is launched for the second time on a certification test flight from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, October 4, 2024. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo
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To Rival SpaceX’s Starship, ULA Eyes Vulcan Rocket Upgrade

Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United Launch Alliance's next-generation Vulcan rocket is launched for the second time on a certification test flight from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, October 4, 2024. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo
Boeing-Lockheed joint venture United Launch Alliance's next-generation Vulcan rocket is launched for the second time on a certification test flight from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, October 4, 2024. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo

 

Boeing and Lockheed Martin's joint rocket venture, United Launch Alliance (ULA), plans to upgrade a version of its Vulcan rocket to challenge SpaceX's Starship in the low Earth orbit satellite launch market, the company's CEO said.

ULA wants to develop a Vulcan model tailored to the increasingly lucrative low Earth orbit (LEO) market, mainly due to SpaceX launching thousands of satellites there for its Starlink Internet service.

"We have recently completed a big trade study for what we want to have to be competitive in a future LEO market," ULA's CEO Tory Bruno told Reuters.

"And we've selected a modification to Vulcan which gives us significantly more mass to LEO and puts us in a competitive range."

ULA's Vulcan rocket, powered by engines from Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, made its first two launches this year and is designed primarily to meet the demands of Pentagon missions into various orbits.

Among the options ULA drew up for an LEO-optimized version, Bruno said, were a "Vulcan Heavy," or three Vulcan core boosters strapped together. He also said there were "other Vulcan configurations that are pretty unique, that have propulsion in unusual places".

Though SpaceX's Starship is primarily designed for crewed missions to the moon and Mars, the company plans to use it to accelerate its deployment of huge batches of Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit.

That has put pressure on SpaceX's rivals to match Starship's capabilities as other firms like Amazon scramble to build competing satellite networks, driving demand for big launchers.

ULA expects to finish development of the variant by the time he believes Musk's Starship - a gigantic rocket that is eventually meant to go to Mars - begins offering LEO satellite launches, Bruno said, which he suggests could be several years from now.

"We're not going to be facing him in that particular marketplace for a while," Bruno predicted.

Musk has said he wants to roughly double the power of Starship and refine the rocket's ability to quickly return to land in giant mechanical arms, indicating SpaceX is anywhere between several months to over a year from flying LEO Starlink satellites.

ULA has several Vulcan missions booked with Amazon to deploy its Kuiper internet satellites into space, making the rocket an important part of Amazon's strategy to challenge Starlink. Amazon has also booked launches with other rockets as part of a record 2022 multi-launch agreement.

SpaceX has launched six Starship test flights to space from its Starbase rocket campus in south Texas, displaying its dramatic test-to-failure ethos involving successive upgrades and incremental testing milestones before locking in a commercial-grade design. Other companies, including ULA, will not launch a new rocket until its design is finalized.

ULA is aiming to fly eight Vulcan missions next year and 12 missions with Atlas V, Vulcan's retiring predecessor.

Vulcan starts at a launch price of roughly $110 million - slightly over the base price of a SpaceX Falcon 9 - and has a book order of roughly 70 missions including its Amazon missions, adding urgency to get the rocket flying routinely.

ULA, formed in a 2006 merger of Boeing and Lockheed's space launch programs, has been up for sale for over a year, drawing interest from Sierra Nevada Corp's space unit Sierra Space and Bezos' Blue Origin, Reuters has previously reported.



Iceland Volcano Erupts for 9th Time Since 2023

Lava emerges through a fissure following a volcano eruption near Grindavik, Reykjanes, Iceland July 16, 2025. Hordur Kristleifsson via Civil Protection Of Iceland/Handout via REUTERS
Lava emerges through a fissure following a volcano eruption near Grindavik, Reykjanes, Iceland July 16, 2025. Hordur Kristleifsson via Civil Protection Of Iceland/Handout via REUTERS
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Iceland Volcano Erupts for 9th Time Since 2023

Lava emerges through a fissure following a volcano eruption near Grindavik, Reykjanes, Iceland July 16, 2025. Hordur Kristleifsson via Civil Protection Of Iceland/Handout via REUTERS
Lava emerges through a fissure following a volcano eruption near Grindavik, Reykjanes, Iceland July 16, 2025. Hordur Kristleifsson via Civil Protection Of Iceland/Handout via REUTERS

A volcano erupted on Wednesday in Iceland's Reykjanes peninsula in the southwest, weather authorities said, the ninth eruption to hit the region since the end of 2023.

Live video feeds showed lava spewing out of a fissure in the ground, with the Icelandic Met Office saying that it began just before 4:00 am (0400 GMT).

Broadcaster RUV reported that the nearby fishing village Grindavik had been evacuated, as had the Blue Lagoon, Iceland's famed tourist spot.

The previous eruption to hit the area was in April.

When the first volcanic eruption first hit the area in late 2023, most of Grindavik's 4,000 residents were evacuated, AFP reported.

Since then, almost all of the houses have been sold to the state, and most of the residents have left.

Volcanoes on the Reykjanes peninsula had not erupted for eight centuries when in March 2021 a period of heightened seismic activity began.