ULA Revealed HEAVY Vulcan to beat SpaceX Starship! Elon Musk Laugh...

United launch Alliance a long-standing Aerospace giant that has been losing ground to SpaceX for years is no exception recently Ula unveiled a bold and ambitious plan to upgrade its new rocket Vulcan in an attempt to compete with Starship in the future the name of this plan Vulcan heavy sounds formidable doesn't it but how EX exactly will vulcan change in this upgraded version what challenges might it face and most importantly will it be enough to challenge SpaceX and its Starship let's dive into all the details on today's episode of great SpaceX the term heavy in the Aerospace industry often signifies a rocket with enhanced capabilities typically achieved by making it larger more powerful and capable of carrying greater payloads SpaceX has its Falcon heavy an upgraded version of the Falcon 9 while Ula has its Delta 4 heavy and enhanced version of the Delta 4 these heavy variants generally follow a straightforward principle adding boosters to the first stage to augment thrust and in turn payload capacity ula's Vulcan heavy plans seem to follow this established formula in a recent interview with Reuters Ula CEO Tor Bruno revealed that the Vulcan heavy upgrade would involve three Vulcan boosters joined together resembling the approach SpaceX used with the the Falcon heavy this new configuration would replace the current solid rocket boosters on Vulcan with additional liquid fueled core boosters the solid boosters each generating about 210 tons or 463,000 lb of thrust currently complement vulcan's main core which produces 498 tons or 1,100,000 lb of thrust using two be4 engines with two solid boosters vulcan's liftoff thrust is around 9 118 tons or over 2 million pound in its new configuration as Vulcan heavy the rocket would consist of three main cores powered by six be4 engines delivering a total thrust of approximately 1,494 tons or 3, 300,000 lb such an increase in thrust would dramatically enhance its payload capacity positioning Vulcan heavy as a competitive option in the heavy lift rocket Market however Bruno suggested that the design might incorporate some Innovative elements stating we will have other Vulcan configurations that are pretty unique that have propulsion in unusual places this indicates that Ula May explore new engineering solutions to further optimize Vulcan Heavy's capabilities The increased payload capacity would allow Vulcan heavy to carry much larger cargo into various orbits currently Vulcan can lift 27.2 tons to low earth orbit 15.3 3 tons to geostationary transfer orbit 7 tons to geostationary Earth orbit and 12.1 tons to trans lunar injection in its upgraded version these numbers could double or even triple potentially matching or surpassing spacex's Falcon heavy this Improvement aligns with ula's goal of maintaining competitiveness in the evolving space industry Bruno emphasized this point by stating we've recently completed a big trade study for what we want to have to be competitive in a future Leo Market this model ification to Vulcan gives us significantly more mass to Leo and puts us in a competitive range with these changes Ula aims to expand its influence in commercial space markets particularly in Leo a domain currently dominated by SpaceX while Ula does not have its own satellite constellation like starlink it seeks to compete indirectly by supporting Amazon's Kyper project this collaboration could help Ula establish a foothold in the growing satellite Broadband Market at the same time Ula will continue to prioritize its traditional strength in Military and government payload launches however this sector is becoming increasingly competitive as SpaceX steadily wins contracts to these areas offering cost- effective and innovative solutions despite these promising developments the Vulcan heavy upgrade faces challenges Ula has been overshadowed by SpaceX in recent years with its older Rockets retired and vulcan's development slower than anticipated the success of the Vulcan heavy will depend on whether it can meet per performance expectations and secure a significant share of the market what do you think of the Vulcan heavy upgrade can it rival SpaceX Rockets particularly Starship comment yes or no below and don't forget to like And subscribe to stay updated on the latest developments in space exploration indeed it's clear to me that the Vulcan heavy will not be able to beat Starship or even compete effectively with spacex's Falcon Rockets to start Ula hasn't even fully developed the original Vulcan rocket after years of dels Vulcan finally launched its first flight in early 2024 but it took 10 months to follow up with a second flight that second flight faced issues with the solid rocket boosters resulting in a prolonged delay in gaining military and government launch certification which likely won't come until early next year meanwhile their third mission isn't expected until April of 2025 and let's not forget the backlog of missions awaiting Vulcan such as the Dreamchaser n SSL and Kyper contracts in my opinion development on Vulcan heavy can only realistically begin once Vulcan itself becomes fully operational which might not happen until late 2025 to put this into perspective SpaceX launched the Falcon heavy 8 years after the debut of Falcon 9 even assuming Ula can accelerate this timeline the Vulcan heavy is unlikely to debut or achieve operational status this decade Bruno admitted as much when he stated that fulcon heavy he's development would likely be completed when Starship begins its activities in Leo his additional comment we're not going to be facing SpaceX in that particular Marketplace for a while further underscores a lack of confidence in Vulcan Heavy's immediate relevance by the time Vulcan heavy finally launches spacex's Rockets will likely have already reached unparalleled levels of achievement for instance Falcon 9 hit 130 launches in 2024 and is aiming for more than 180 in 2025 those numbers will only increase in the years ahead Starship meanwhile is expected to end the year conducting six flights and will likely ramp up to 25 flights in 2025 with projections of 400 in total over the next four years during this time Starship will also achieve Milestones like reaching the moon and Mars if Vulcan heavy debuts in the late 2020s it will face competitors that are far beyond it capabilities the challenges extend beyond timing Vulcan Heavy's design requires additional engines but its Reliance on Blue Origins be4 engines presents a significant bottleneck blue Origins production rate for these engines has been notoriously slow and with the new Glenn rocket expected to fly more frequently in the coming years the supply chain for Vulcan engines may become even more constrained this dependency sharply contrasts with spacex's self-sufficiency in engine produ production an advantage that enhances their flexibility and speed in terms of cost and capability Vulcan heavy appears to fall short while it might carry more payload than the Falcon Rockets it'll do so at a much higher cost vulcan's current launch price is $110 million us whereas Falcon 9 costs around 69 million per launch and Falcon heavy is $97 million when reusable or 150 million if Expendable if Vulcan becomes operational its launch cost could exceed 200 million an exorbitant amount for only a marginal increase in payload capacity in contrast to Starship which offers an unmatched payload capacity its V1 iteration can carry between 50 to 100 tons while the V2 version exceeds 100 tons and the largest model the V3 is capable of more than 200 tons despite this starship's current expend able launch cost is $100 million already lower than Vulcan and likely much cheaper than Vulcan heavy furthermore SpaceX aims to reduce starship's launch costs to just am measly $2 million an astonishingly low figure about a 100 times cheaper than Vulcan Heavy's likely costs but what truly sets SpaceX apart is reusability while Falcon Rockets are only partially reusable they have already set industry benchmarks the Falcon booster reuse record stands at 24 flights with a turnaround time of just 13 days these Milestones have allowed SpaceX to cut costs significantly and increase launch frequency starship's full reusability takes this advantage to an entirely new level it'll not only drastically reduce costs but also enable a launch Cadence that Ula simply cannot match with its flexibility capacity and speed of development Starship leaves no room for Vulcan heavy to compete Ula is also grappling with broader issues that undermine its ability to compete years of delays with Vulcan have placed the company in a precarious position there have even been discussions about selling Ula to a new owner Bruno's refusal to address these questions in a recent interview only deepened suspicions about the company's future additionally Ula has seen a significant brain drain with many experienced Engineers leaving to join competitors including PHX this loss of talent further erodes ula's competitiveness given all these factors it's difficult to imagine Vulcan heavy making a meaningful impact between the high costs developmental delays and an inability to match spacex's Innovation it's clear that Vulcan heavy will struggle to remain relevant in the rapidly advancing Aerospace industry ula's aspiration to surpass SpaceX and Starship seems nearly impossible even with the proposed Vulcan heavy the company faces numerous challenges in design capability and execution before they can develop a heavy version capable of competing with SpaceX for now ula's priority should be ensuring its own Survival and getting the original Vulcan into reliable operation lofty Ambitions like Vulcan heavy May remain Out Of Reach for the foreseeable future that said if Ula can successfully navigate these obstacles the Vulcan heavy plan could still hold promise it's a concept worth exploring but the road ahead will undoubtedly be long and challenging let's see if Ula can rise to the occasion and with that folks thank you so much for tuning in as always this has been Kevin from great SpaceX until next time keep looking up