Honestly… good. GPS is infrastructure, not a “wait for the new rocket to be ready” science project. If Falcon 9 can get it up in weeks, send it.
ULA still gets SV13 later on Vulcan, so it’s not like they’re getting iced out. This just feels like Space Force doing the practical thing: keep the constellation healthy and don’t let schedules slip.
Thoughts?
Space Force just moved GPS SV09 from ULA Vulcan to a SpaceX Falcon 9 so it can launch ASAP.
byu/19potato96 inspace
10 Comments
Is speed really the main reason? We are talking weeks here. GPS III was approved by congress in 2000, it’s 2026.
There are no Vulcans, or is this a problem with certification? Do we know what the bottleneck is? I can only think of the engines.
Vulcan has an old design style. I don’t see how it can compete long-term with F9, NG and all other rockets that are coming.
I don’t know if this is so important. GPS for military use has redundancies that can cover a missing satellite. Especially since it’s very simple to block it.
Civilians don’t rely on GPS only. They use a combination of any GNSS system and terrestrial infrastructure like cell phone network and wifi.
So I really don’t think that’s the reason.
Edit: if there are no certified Vulcans as others have mentioned, this could be a reason. But not that they have to launch it ASAP
Speed may not be the primary reason:
>The trade results in an overall net cost savings to the government…
So, faster and cheaper, why wouldn’t you 🤷♂️
Some info from the article…
– SpaceX stepped in at the last minute to launch SV07.
– SpaceX stepped in to launch SV08 in return for giving up SV11.
– SpaceX will step in to launch SV09 in return for giving up SV13.
Notice a pattern? ULA needs to get its act together.
Expect more to be given to the main providers. The same thing happened for a launch they gave to rocket lab last month because their original LV was too slow.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|——-|———|—|
|ETOV|Earth To Orbit Vehicle (common parlance: “rocket”)|
|[GEO](/r/Space/comments/1qcjcn6/stub/nzjiopk “Last usage”)|Geostationary Earth Orbit (35786km)|
|[GNSS](/r/Space/comments/1qcjcn6/stub/nzjx7v2 “Last usage”)|Global Navigation Satellite System(s)|
|[LV](/r/Space/comments/1qcjcn6/stub/nzj1ydu “Last usage”)|Launch Vehicle (common parlance: “rocket”), see ETOV|
|[MEO](/r/Space/comments/1qcjcn6/stub/nzjxxe9 “Last usage”)|Medium Earth Orbit (2000-35780km)|
|[NET](/r/Space/comments/1qcjcn6/stub/nzjdk7u “Last usage”)|No Earlier Than|
|[NG](/r/Space/comments/1qcjcn6/stub/nzijkcc “Last usage”)|New Glenn, two/three-stage orbital vehicle by Blue Origin|
| |Natural Gas (as opposed to pure methane)|
| |Northrop Grumman, aerospace manufacturer|
|[SV](/r/Space/comments/1qcjcn6/stub/nzki427 “Last usage”)|Space Vehicle|
|[ULA](/r/Space/comments/1qcjcn6/stub/nzjzceu “Last usage”)|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)|
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
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^(8 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/Space/comments/1qbshpz)^( has 14 acronyms.)
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SV13 would have been on a Falcon Heavy so I’m a little annoyed at this.
This is getting embarrassing for ULA
“The U.S. Space Force has decided to launch its next GPS satellite on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket instead of a United Launch Alliance Vulcan.”
Has decided… *5 months ago*. Article makes it sound like SpaceX is pivoting within weeks to emergency-launch a GPS satellite. I’m guessing this is the result of ULA being required to fish a booster off the bottom of the ocean after an anomalous flight during which the payload was delivered accurately.