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Vulcan Centaur launches Peregrine lunar lander on inaugural mission
United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur soared into night skies on its long-awaited first launch Jan. 8, carrying a commercial lunar lander.
The Vulcan Centaur lifted off from Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 41 at 2:18 a.m. Eastern on a mission designated Cert-1 by ULA. The primary payload of the Cert-1 mission, Peregrine, was deployed from the Centaur upper stage 50 minutes later after two burns of the Centaur upper stage. A second payload, from space memorial company Celestis, remained attached to the Centaur as planned.
Peregrine is a lunar lander developed by Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic. The Centaur placed Peregrine on a highly elliptical orbit that will take it to the moon, where it will go into orbit in advance of a landing attempt Feb. 23.
“Peregrine powered on, acquired a signal with Earth and is now moving through space on its way to the moon,” John Thornton, chief executive of Astrobotic, said in a statement after the launch.
Peregrine is carrying 20 payloads, including five from NASA as part of the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. NASA is paying $108 million for the payload delivery. Other customers include national space agencies, companies and organizations flying payloads ranging from miniature rovers to commemorative items.
Peregrine is Astrobotic’s first lunar lander after 16 years of work. “It’s just a massive mix of emotions,” said Thornton in a Jan. 5 interview. “We’ve overcome so many reasons that we shouldn’t be here.”
Once Peregrine is powered up and checked out after separation, the next major milestone is a series of trajectory correction maneuvers a few days after launch. Peregrine will later go into lunar orbit, gradually lowering that orbit to prepare for the landing near Gruitheisen Domes on the near side of the moon.
Thornton acknowledged the mixed track record of lunar landers, with a historic success rate of less than 50%. “We know we’re headed into a gauntlet here. We know we’re headed into very difficult territory,” he said. “At the end of the day, we need to get as much data as we can at every point through the mission so we can learn and get better as an industry.”
When NASA started the CLPS program in 2018, it adopted a “shots on goal” philosophy, recognizing that not all missions would be successful. “We know going into this that it’s a really difficult thing to do,” said Joel Kearns, NASA deputy associate administrator for exploration in the Science Mission Directorate, in a Jan. 5 interview.
He said NASA remained committed to that approach and did not expect any kind of retrenchment if the initial missions fail. “The companies, we believe, are in it for the long haul. We think it’s the best path to get U.S. industry to do this as a service.”
Vulcan’s debut
After releasing Peregrine, ULA planned to conduct a series of tests of the Centaur upper stage, including a third firing of its RL10 engines. Those tests will demonstrate how the stage performs on extended-duration missions, that those that deliver payloads directly to geostationary orbit.
“We’ll use this opportunity of this flight test to validate a lot of our future mission objectives,” said Gary Wentz, vice president of government and commercial programs at ULA, at a Jan. 5 briefing.
The launch was the first of two flights for Vulcan Centaur required for certification by the U.S. Space Force for national security payloads. The second, carrying the first Dream Chaser spaceplane from Sierra Space, is scheduled for as soon as April.
“On the first flight of the system we’ll have observations and we will learn from those observations,” said Mark Peller, vice president of Vulcan development at ULA. “We need to get through two flights and we will evaluate the data. We expect that will put is on a path to complete our National Security Space Launch certification.”
ULA has been developing Vulcan for a decade as a replacement for its existing Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rockets. The first launch slipped by several years, in large part because of development delays in the BE-4 engines from Blue Origin used in its first stage.
While Vulcan is a new rocket, ULA stressed that many of its components have been flown on Atlas and Delta rockets. “As we brought Vulcan on board and designed the systems, we leveraged the existing systems as much as possible,” said Wentz. “The only hardware that hasn’t flown prior to this flight is the BE-4 engine. All the others, or variants thereto, have flown on either Atlas or Delta.”
The company has a backlog of more than 70 Vulcan launches, including a National Security Space Launch Phase 2 contract and 38 launches from Amazon to deploy part of its Project Kuiper broadband constellation. All of the company’s remaining Atlas and Delta vehicles have been assigned to various customers. “It’s the future of our company,” said Peller.
“Vulcan’s inaugural launch ushers in a new, innovative capability to meet the ever-growing requirements of space launch,” said Tory Bruno, chief executive of ULA, in a statement after the launch.
On NASA TV shortly after payload separation, Bruno was asked how he was feeling. “Yeehaw!” he responded. “I am so thrilled, I can’t tell you how much.”
注释：
Vulcan: n
表示"罗马神话中火与锻冶之神"，means "(Roman mythology) god of fire and metal working"，如：The gods left Olympus to honor the occasion with their presence, and Vulcan presented the bride with a necklace of surpassing brilliancy, his own workmanship. 奥林波斯山上的众神都来庆贺他们的婚礼。伏尔甘送给了新娘一串他亲手制作的项链，精美绝伦。
Centaur: n
表示" [希神]人首马身的怪物"，means " a mythical being that is half man and half horse"，如：His face reminded me somehow of a centaur. 他的脸使我想起半人半马的怪物。
Peregrine: n
表示" 游隼"，如：But experts can't agree on the peregrine's top speed. 但专家们对游隼的最高飞行速度未达成一致。
trajectory: n
表示"轨迹; 弹道"，如：The missile deflected from its trajectory. 导弹已偏离轨道。
gauntlet: n
表示"挑战"，means "to offer or accept a challenge"，如：He was quick to take up the gauntlet thrown down by the opposition. 他立即接受了对方提出的挑战。
retrenchment: n
表示" 减少；删除"，means "the reduction of expenditures in order to become financially stable"，如：This will force a retrenchment on the part of consumers and lead to the postponement of many investment decisions. 这将迫使消费者数量的减少以及许多投资决定的推迟。
geostationary: adj
表示"与地球旋转同步的"，如：geostationary satellite 地球静止卫星,地球同步 卫星
thereto：adv
表示" 另外；到那里"，means "to that;"，如：The castle stands on a hill,and the road thereto is steep and rough. 城堡建在山上，去那儿的路陡峭崎岖。
中文简要说明：
千呼万唤! 联合发射联盟(ULA)新一代太空工具：火神-半人马火箭(Vulcan Centaur)终于在1月8 日进行了首次发射，它搭载着「游隼号」月球登陆器(Peregrine Lunar Lander)，是50多年来美国制的探测器再次前往月球，为将来的再次登月进行环境考察的工作。
太空新闻(Space News)报导，火神半人马火箭于美国东部时间凌晨 2 点 18 分，卡纳维拉尔角第41号太空发射台升空，搭载着由「天体机器人」公司(Astrobotic) 开发的游隼号月球登陆器。担任第2级的半人马火箭，将游隼号置于一个高椭圆轨道上，它经过一个多月的变轨后，会在2月23日进入月球探测轨道。游隼号携带了20个仪器，其中5个是NASA提供的，还支付了该公司 1.08 亿美元。
一旦游隼号启动，并在分离后进行检查也一切没问题后，下一个重要的门坎就是一系列的轨道修正操作，其间会逐渐接近月球，降低轨道，最后在月球雨海附近，一座外型独特的格鲁伊森圆顶山( Gruitheisen Domes )着陆。
虽然早在1960年代人类就已登陆月球，但是那属于拿着纳税人钱的政府计划，民用月球探测器的登陆成功率还是不高，不足50%。所以对民间太空业者来说，仍然是相当大的挑战。”
除了游隼号以外，这一次的太空火箭也值得介绍。火神火箭是联合发射联盟的新一代太空运输工具，先前的「擎天神系列」(Altas 1~5)已过于古老，耗尽了改良与升级的空间，同时后期的擎天神5型，使用的引擎是进口自俄罗斯的RD-180引擎，随着俄乌战争，俄罗斯遭全球制裁，俄罗斯的反制措施就是不再提供RD-180，目前ULA还剩20多具引擎，最多只能再进行4~5次发射，因此也有时间上的急迫性。
虽然火神是一款新型火箭，但 ULA 强调，其许多组件已在 擎天神、戴尔他(Delta) 火箭上成熟使用，这次发射之前，唯一没有真正进入太空的硬件是 BE-4 引擎。所幸它的表现良好。
由于火神火箭开发延迟了大约3年，该公司已积压了 70 多次发射任务，包括国家安全太空发射第二阶段合约，和亚马逊公司的 38 次发射。不过这些问题也随着今天的火神成功升空，可望快速解决。
同时，火神火箭使用的蓝色起源公司(Blue Origin)Be-4火箭引擎，单具推力250吨，采用液氧-甲烷燃料，在理论上具有完整回收的性能。蓝色起源希望以Be-4为基础，研发一种可以全部回收再使用的火箭「新葛伦号」(New Glenn)，被视为Space X最有力的竞争对手。
下一次的火箭火箭任务同样值得期待，它将承载塞拉太空公司(Sierra Space)的「逐梦者」航天飞机(Dream Chaser)，预计最快于四月发射。
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