Astrobiotics’ Peregrine Lunar Lander is set to be mounted on top of its ride to space today, according to United Launch Alliance. Their Vulcan rocket, which is set to make its debut NET January 8, 2024, will carry Peregrine to Earth orbit, after which the lander will travel to the Moon and if all goes well, complete a soft landing on the lunar surface. Once placed aboard the 202-foot tall rocket, Peregrine and Vulcan preparations will continue until they are launched. No T-0 time has yet been announced.

Will Vulcan Be The First Methane-Powered American Rocket To Achieve Orbit?

When Vulcan launches, it will be one of the first American rockets powered by a combination of liquid methane (CH4) and liquid oxygen (O2). So far, all of the attempts by American companies to reach orbit using the Methalox combo have been unsuccessful. Notably, Chinese launch company Landspace achieved orbit with its Zhuque-2 rocket last July.

Relativity Terran 1

Relativity Space’s Terran 1 rocket first launched on March 22, 2023 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The launch, called the “Good Luck, Have Fun” (GLHF) mission did achieve several notable milestones, including the stated goal of the vehicle passing through Max-Q, or the time when the force of atmospheric resistance is at its greatest. The launch ultimately failed after the engine powering the rocket’s second stage failed to ignite properly.

SpaceX Starship Heavy

SpaceX has attempted to launch their methalox-powered rocket — Starship Heavy — twice from the company’s launch facilities in Texas. Both launches also failed to achieve orbit, but SpaceX labeled them successful as they both met key milestones for the launch test.

With IFT-1, the rocket’s first stage’s engines successfully ignited, powering the largest and most powerful rocket ever flown off of the launch pad. During that launch, the pad itself experienced a great deal of damage and required extensive rehabilitation and updates afterwards. The vehicle made it through Max-Q successfully, verifying the structural design of Starship Heavy. Not long after, IFT-1 met failure when staging was attempted, causing a loss-of-vehicle and loss-of-mission event. That led to major design changes both to Starship Heavy and its launch pad.

The second attempt, IFT-2, faired far better — Starship Heavy had a cleaner liftoff with all engines running on the first stage, passed through Max-Q and staged successfully. After that, problem arose with both the Starship Heavy and Starship (the second stage) and both vehicles were lost. Still, the mission was designated a success because multiple key milestones were achieved. SpaceX has not announced a specific date for its third Starship Heavy test launch, but all signs in Texas are pointing to one in the January-February time frame.

Starship is a vital component of NASA’s Artemis program, as it is slated to be the lander that astronauts will use to visit the lunar surface.

It is worth pointing out that while the “failures” of Starship Heavy have been spectacular, SpaceX uses an iterative development method where failure is acceptable in the early part of the program. For both IFT launches, the company was able to gather a great amount of data that informed improvements given to its next launch, and so far, it appears that each Starship Heavy has gone further and faster.

United Launch Alliance Vulcan

Vulcan, for its part, has also had issues on its way to the launch pad. Manufacturing issues at Blue Origin’s new rocket engine fabrication plant in Huntsville, Alabama, have resulted in a relatively slow cadence of output of their BE-4 engines. Secondly, while running qualification testing on one BE-4, ULA experienced a failure. After that, during qualification testing of the second stage for Vulcan, the company experienced a failure on the test stand leading to redesign of some components and further qualification tests.

With those incidents behind it, a confident ULA is almost ready to send Vulcan on its way to space early next month. With the payload going on top of the rocket today, it is clear that the feel they are ready for this flight. Pending range clearance and Vulcan readiness, that could come as soon as January 8, 2023.