United Launch Alliance’s much-anticipated debut of its Vulcan rocket may be delayed until early January, according to the company’s president and CEO Tory Bruno. The original launch date of December 24 is “likely out,” Bruno said in a social media post on Sunday.
The setback comes after the rocket conducted a Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR) where the vehicle was fully fueled and went through the countdown before encountering a “couple of routine ground issues near the end” of the test, Bruno explained.
The primary payload onboard the Vulcan rocket is Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander, which is scheduled to journey to the Moon. If the launch is able to happen during the December launch window, the lander would touch down on the Moon’s surface at approximately 3:30 a.m. EST on January 25, 2024.
With the potential delay to January, the Moon-bound mission landscape changes as Intuitive Machine’s Nova-C lander onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is set to launch just four days after Peregrine, and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) is also scheduled to land on the Moon around that time.
Although ULA is working to address the issues that came up during the WDR, the precise date for the next test has yet to be determined. As of now, a test has been tentatively scheduled for as soon as Tuesday as teams work to ensure the Vulcan rocket is ready for its highly-anticipated first flight.