WASHINGTON — The grounding of United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Vulcan heavy lifter could result in launch delays and/or reassignments to other launch providers for multiple upcoming Space Force and National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) missions, according to a senior service official.
Lt. Gen. Douglas Schiess, Space Force deputy chief of operations, told the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday that the service is still “actively looking through what the impacts will be” but said “several launches coming up” could be affected. Specifically, those include the first Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared – Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (Next-Gen GEO), a joint Space Force-NRO SILENTBARKER neighborhood watch bird, and the Wideband Global SATCOM-11+, as well as “some NRO satellites and space domain awareness” satellites.
“We are working through that,” Schiess told lawmakers, “and we will come back to you when we have some more information on that. But we understand this, and we’re actively working on it.”
While the Space Force makes decisions about any NSSL manifest changes on a case-by-case basis depending on many factors, including the priority of the payload involved, the immediacy of the planned launch date is a key driver.
Of the list of sats potentially affected by the Vulcan grounding, the WGS-11 and the Next-Gen GEO satellites are two of the satellites nearest to their planned launch dates — and thus the most likely to be first to feel any impacts. The WGS-11 satellite, built by Boeing, was set to lift on by the end of March, according to the website Rocketlaunch.org that tracks upcoming launches.
The Next-Gen GEO, built by prime contractor Lockheed Martin with the infrared sensor payload provided by RTX, was originally supposed to fly in September 2025 but was already delayed until “no earlier” than the end of this month by both troubles with the sensor and the Space Force’s already overcrowded launch manifest.
A Space Systems Command (SSC) spokesperson today confirmed that those satellites “may be impacted by the anomaly” with Vulcan’s motors discovered during its otherwise successful Feb. 12 launch of the USSF-87 mission carrying two Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSSAP) neighborhood watch satellites.
As a result, the Space Force on March 20 announced it has shifted the planned Vulcan launch of the final satellite in the Global Position System (GPS) III series, GPS III SV-10, to a SpaceX Falcon 9 — a mission that now is expected to lift off no later than the end of next month.
SSC’s Delta 80 team, which manages the NSSL program “continues to evaluate specific launch manifest impacts resulting from the anomaly on the USSF-87 mission and adjust as necessary to ensure delivery of space vehicles when they are ready,” the spokesperson said. “The NSSL program’s focus remains on providing responsive and reliable launch to deliver critical capability where and when it’s needed and we will leverage every flexibility we have to be able to get these capabilities to orbit for the warfighter.”
A ULA spokesperson said that despite the “significant performance anomaly” found on one of Vulcan’s four solid rocket motors early in the USSF-87 flight, “the Vulcan booster and Centaur performed nominally and delivered the payload to its precise geosynchronous orbit.”
The GEM 63XL solid rocket motors are provided by Northrop Grumman. Representatives for the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At the moment, the ULA spokesperson said, an “integrated” US government and contractor team “is reviewing the technical data, available imagery and collecting any debris.
“We are working closely with Northrop Grumman and have established an investigation team, comprised of experts across the industry,” they said. “Until the team has reviewed the data, inspected all available evidence, and developed and implemented corrective actions, we will not fly another Vulcan mission.”
Further, the ULA spokesperson said, “in coordination” with the ongoing investigation, ULA and Northrop Grumman “are working on integrating a planned GEM 63XL upgrade for the next Vulcan mission.”