Vulcan

United Launch Alliance will work with the U.S. government to review flight data and collect debris if necessary before Vulcan’s next mission.

Two heavy-lift rockets, Ariane 64 and ULA Vulcan, launched on the same Thursday.

The Vulcan launch on February 12, 2026 experienced an SRB nozzle that likely burned through seconds into launch and detached partway through first stage flight.

The Vulcan launch was the rocket’s second mission under the National Security Space Launch program.

The payloads on the Vulcan launch included a "neighborhood watch" mission intended to patrol the strategic high ground of geosynchronous orbit.

Vulcan experienced a similar solid rocket booster nozzle loss on the Certification-2 mission.

United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket successfully launched national security spacecraft into geosynchronous orbit.

Vulcan experienced a burnthrough in one of its solid rocket booster nozzles at T+0:29 during the observed flight.

The Vulcan booster and Centaur upper stage performed nominally and delivered the spacecraft directly to the intended orbit.

Vulcan uses the GEM63XL solid rocket boosters, which are a stretched version of the GEM63 used on Atlas.

Vulcan uses GEM63XL solid rocket boosters while Atlas uses GEM63 solid rocket boosters.

The telemetry shown in the visualization is taken close to BECO for both the USSF-87 and USSF-106 Vulcan VC4 launches.

Two solid rocket booster (SRB) nozzle incidents occurred on United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket, one during the USSF-87 mission and one during the Cert-2 launch.

Two SRB nozzles have detached across four Vulcan launches and twelve SRB flights according to the posted observations.

A solid rocket motor performance anomaly affected the Cert-2 SRB during the Vulcan launch.

United Launch Alliance had planned to launch GPS III SV10 on Vulcan as its next mission.

One of the four solid rocket motors on a Vulcan vehicle experienced a significant performance anomaly early during flight.

United Launch Alliance will conduct a thorough investigation, identify the root cause of the anomaly, and implement corrective actions before the next Vulcan mission.

A solid rocket booster nozzle joint section experienced a burn-through during a ULA Vulcan launch.