Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves, Air Force program executive officer for Space and SMC commander, and Tory Bruno, ULA president and CEO, sign a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement or CRADA for the certification of ULA’s Vulcan Launch System at a ceremony, Sept. 27. Photo: ULA

[Via Satellite 09-28-2016] The United States Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) has signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with United Launch Alliance (ULA) as part of the company’s effort to certify its new Vulcan launch vehicle for National Security Space (NSS) missions. The jointly written agreement facilitates data exchanges and protects proprietary and export-controlled data.

This CRADA enables the Air Force to evaluate the Vulcan launch system according to the Air Force’s New Entrant Certification Guide (NECG), and contains a detailed certification plan that specifies all of the non-recurring activities. The CRADA will be in effect until all non-recurring design validation activities for Vulcan are complete.

As part of the evaluation, SMC and ULA will look at flight history, vehicle design, reliability, process maturity, safety systems, manufacturing and operations, systems engineering, risk management and launch facilities. SMC will monitor at least two certification flights to meet the flight history requirements outlined in the NECG. ULA will give the U.S. government specific levels of insight into the design and testing of the vehicle during its development; the breadth and depth of this insight allows for the number of certification flights to be two. Once portions of the non-recurring validation are complete, the SMC commander may make a determination to grant certification. According to SMC, this approach is consistent with other CRADAs.

Currently, ULA’s Delta 4 and Atlas 5, and SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Upgrade are the only certified launch vehicles for sending NSS payloads into orbit. SMC is looking to have multiple certified launch vehicle providers and multiple families of launch systems for assured access to space. Consequently, SMC anticipates entering into additional CRADAs with SpaceX for the Falcon Heavy rocket and with Orbital ATK for its next generation launcher.