The U.S. Space Force has suspended all national security launches aboard United Launch Alliance‘s Vulcan Centaur rocket after a solid rocket booster malfunction occurred for the second time in the vehicle’s short operational history.
The most recent incident took place on Feb. 12, during the USSF-87 mission, which carried two reconnaissance satellites for the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP). Approximately 20 seconds after liftoff, one of Vulcan’s four solid rocket boosters suffered a visible anomaly. The rocket’s two BE-4 first-stage engines compensated, and both satellites were successfully delivered to geosynchronous transfer orbit. The mission, by technical measures, succeeded. But the pattern it revealed did not go unnoticed.
A Recurring Problem
This was not an isolated event. During Vulcan’s October 2024 national security payload certification launch, a manufacturing defect caused a nozzle on one of the solid rocket boosters to detach mid-flight, sending the vehicle briefly off course before it corrected itself. Two anomalies across four total launches — both involving the same component category — is what prompted the Space Force to act.
Space Force Col. Eric Zarybnisky addressed the situation directly at the Air Force Association’s Warfare Symposium on Feb. 25. “This is going to be a many-months process as we work through the exact technical issue that happened and the corrective actions we need to make sure, we need to take, to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” he told reporters. He was unambiguous about the conditions for resumption: “Until this anomaly is solved we will not be launching Vulcan missions.”
The exact cause of the USSF-87 booster anomaly remains under investigation. ULA has not yet released findings.
Implications for ULA’s Manifest
Vulcan Centaur debuted in January 2024 and has accumulated four flights. The rocket is booked for more than two dozen national security launches over the coming years — a substantial portion of ULA’s forward workload. A grounding measured in months, as Zarybnisky indicated, creates real schedule pressure across that manifest.
The pause comes at a complicated moment for the company. Longtime ULA CEO Tory Bruno resigned at the end of 2025 and moved to rival launch provider Blue Origin — which also manufactures the BE-4 engines that power Vulcan’s first stage. Leadership transitions of that scale rarely simplify an ongoing technical investigation.
What Happens Next
The core question is whether the two booster anomalies share a root cause or represent separate failure modes. If the October 2024 nozzle defect and the February 2025 event stem from a systemic issue in booster manufacturing or integration, the corrective path becomes broader and potentially more time-consuming.
Vulcan’s ability to compensate for booster failures through its main engines has prevented mission losses so far. That resilience is notable. But the Space Force’s decision to halt launches signals that successful outcomes are not sufficient cover for a pattern that has not yet been explained.
ULA’s investigation is continuing. No revised launch timeline has been announced.
Photo by Maria Baranova on Unsplash
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