How does ULA's Vulcan rocket compare to the competition?

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One point that often gets overlooked when comparing these launch vehicles is that Vulcan has a cool fire painted on its side which makes it go faster.

The best part of Vulcans successful launch is that the next one will be with Dream Chasers debut launch. And im here for it!

As unfortunate it is that the Peregrine Lunar Lander failed, it’s amazing that Vulcan finally made its debut! Go team space!!

The 20-30 minutes format mixed into your standard long form is excellent and very welcome!! Great video!

I think that the Vulcan rocket will have a limited role in LEO, but will continue to survive through the next couple of years due to the fact that it is good for high energy orbits.

I'm disappointed that this is only 20 minutes long but I'm still going to arrange my evening around watching it! Cheers Tim!

I feel like this will be critical for whoever ends up buying ULA.

Honestly, I can see Vulcan lasting a long time, precisely because it's tailored towards high-energy payloads. A lot of rockets today (including Starship as it would need refueling otherwise) are kinda designed for LEO, and that limits their abilities for higher orbits (Ariane 6 being an obvious exception). From my understanding, ULA is doing SMART because of these high-energy orbits throwing the booster so far downrange that reentering Earth's atmosphere is just entirely impractical. With SMART going online, and if anything with ACES is done, I can absolutely see Vulcan remaining competitive for a long time.

I think the thing that will determine success or failure for Vulcan beyond this current slate of missions (which by itself would be a respectable launch record) will be how much they continue to innovate with it. With SMART reuse and some of the Centaur V/ACES upgrades (IVF, XEUS and other in space operations) it could have a very long life serving its niche of the market.

Gotta love a "short" Everyday Astronaut video!

I’ve been excited for Vulcan since it was announced. They definitely knew what they were doing by designing a rocket for high-energy orbits for DoD, NASA, and Communications Satellites, and not trying to compete with the LEO market which is driven primarily by price and not performance.

I really hope you keep the YouTube angle going… no one is in a better position to give the more advanced version of these events. We need you Tim.

Excellent work as always Tim!

Don’t underestimate how important total faring dimensions and volume are! JWST’s specs were driven heavily by the Ariane 5, and Hubble was built to fit by a hair into the space shuttle. The large size of Vulcan’s capacity is a big selling point — not just for government contracts, but for other satellites and probes as well, perhaps.

Great job Tim! I prefer the shorter episode...hard to fit more than 20 mins into busy schedule. I love your simple language explaining complex things. You're sketches, arrows etc on key photos really help. Thanks for your purist approach, also nice to hear your opinions and visions!

Vulcan’s “smart reuse” is quite smart, it involves throwing away the “cheap” booster tanks but saving the engines. The only thing is the tanks aren’t “cheap”, at least compared to other rockets. ULA uses friction stir welding for fabrication of the tank, which is better than starships mig or tig welding, but also much more expensive. Also Ula’s tanks use isogrid or orthogrid structures, requiring 90% of the raw material to be thrown away as they use CNC machines to mill down the tanks to the right shape. To make Vulcan very economical, they should adopt what SpaceX does, using thin cheap sheet metal and welding stringers to the inside. That would make the rocket cheaper.

Great summary, Tim. I think however, mentioning that because SpaceX launches so often, its availability is that much greater. Taking five years to schedule a flight, which is a weakness ISRO not to mention ESA has, is a none starter for many customers. SpaceX seems to always have the capacity to fit a customer in the schedule when needed. That gives SpaceX a huge competitive advantage.

Great video. I appreciate the fact you point out uncertainties where they occur instead of just glossing over them like many others. Great work!

Short videos are cool but My favorite videos are the Hour long in depth rocket engine breakdown. From the different cycles to how to start a rocket engine, I love the full explanation and detailed info in those long videos and hope for more like those soon!