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ULA set to ship Vulcan rocket to Florida for Moon lander launch
After many years of delays, all the parts of the United Launch Alliance’s next-generation Vulcan Centaur rocket are about to converge on Florida for their first launch.
Unveiled in 2015, ULA has been working on Vulcan Centaur since at least 2014. Following Russia’s first illegal invasion of Ukraine, countries around the world attempted to punish the aggressor mainly through economic sanctions. In the US, those sanctions included bans on the import of most Russian aerospace technologies, including the RD-180 engines that still power ULA’s Atlas V workhorse rocket in 2023. In 2014, ULA announced that it would work with Blue Origin to integrate the startup’s BE-4 engine into a new rocket booster to end its reliance on Russian engines.
More than eight years later, that BE-4 engine is finally ready for flight, and the rest of the first two-stage Vulcan rocket appears to be right behind it.
The update that's rolling out to the fleet makes full use of the front and rear steering travel to minimize turning circle. In this case a reduction of 1.6 feet just over the air— Wes (@wmorrill3) April 16, 2024
Eastward-bound
In a burst of New Year activity, CEO Tory Bruno confirmed that Vulcan Flight 1’s core stage (booster) has been fully assembled, buttoned up, and loaded onto ULA’s transport ship. The aptly named RocketShip will ferry the booster from ULA’s Decatur, Alabama factory to Cape Canaveral, Florida, where it will enter the final stages of launch preparation at the company’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) LC-41 pad.
Simultaneously, ULA has finished proof testing Vulcan’s first Centaur V upper stage, a larger and more advanced version of the Centaur III stage ULA and its predecessors have been flying for decades. Centaur V is almost twice as wide as Centaur III and is designed to hold two and a half times more propellant, enabling significantly higher performance in some scenarios.
Additionally, while ULA has partially abandoned plans for a reusable upper stage called ACES (Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage), some of those improvements may still be added to Centaur V. Compared to Centaur III, Centaur V’s longevity in space will grow from 8 to 12 hours. ULA is also developing a “mission extension kit” that will allow it to operate for multiple months – unprecedented for a rocket stage powered by cryogenic propellant.
Photos taken by a local paper appear to indicate that ULA is shipping one or more payload fairing (nosecone) halves alongside Vulcan’s first flightworthy booster. While unconfirmed, it would make sense for ULA to ship Vulcan’s booster and fairing together. Another tweet from Tory Bruno indicates that ULA intends to ship Vulcan’s booster and upper stage together, increasing the odds that all components will be aboard RocketShip when it departs for Florida.
A New Workhorse
Vulcan Centaur is ultimately designed to fully replace ULA’s existing Delta IV and Atlas V rockets. Building and operating two very different rockets simultaneously is undoubtedly one of the reasons that ULA’s launch costs are so much higher than SpaceX’s, and simplifying to a single production line is one clear way to achieve major cost savings. ULA hopes that the simplest version of Vulcan will eventually cost about $100 million per launch – still far more than SpaceX’s base Falcon 9 price [PDF] but potentially more competitive than Atlas V. That’s unclear, though, as Bruno has previously stated that Atlas V’s launch costs have fallen to about $100 million apiece thanks to unrelated cost savings.
Regardless, Vulcan Centaur will be a capable rocket and its price is close enough to SpaceX’s extremely competitive Falcon 9 for it to be a mostly valid option for launch customers who want diversity or want to avoid SpaceX for less rational reasons. Vulcan has secured more than 70 launch contracts thanks to ULA’s intimate relationship with the US military and Amazon’s reluctance to launch its Project Kuiper internet satellites with the company behind Starlink, a direct competitor.
Fitted with two BE-4 engines, six solid rocket boosters (SRBs), and unknown upgrades, ULA says the most capable version of Vulcan Centaur will be able to launch up to 12.1 tons (26,700 lb) to the Moon, 15.3 tons (33,700 lb) to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), and 27.2 tons (60,000 lb) to low Earth orbit (LEO). To high orbits, the most capable Vulcan variant will fairly competitive with SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket. To low orbits, it will generally match or slightly exceed the performance of an expendable Falcon 9, but likely for a much higher price. By every measure, the simplest and cheapest Vulcan variant is significantly less capable than even a partially reusable Falcon 9 and will likely cost 50-100% more.
Moon or bust
Indicating ULA’s confidence in the unflown rocket, the main target of Vulcan’s first launch is the Moon. Vulcan Flight 1 will carry two main payloads: the first two Amazon Kuiper satellite prototypes and Pittsburgh startup Astrobotic’s first Peregrine Moon lander. After deploying both Kuiper satellites in low Earth orbit, Centaur V will fire up again and attempt to send the 1.3-ton (~2850 lb) Peregrine lander directly to the Moon – also known as a trans-lunar injection (TLI) burn. Developed as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, Peregrine will be tasked with entering orbit around the Moon and eventually landing up to 70-90 kilograms (150-200 lb) of payload on the lunar surface.
The first Peregrine Moon lander is fully assembled and currently in the middle of extensive integrated testing. If successful, ULA CEO Tory Bruno says that Vulcan will likely be ready to launch sometime in Q1 2023, though Q2 2023 is more likely.
Tesla has launched its newest iteration of the Model 3 in China with a slew of new features, including the highly requested V2L (vehicle-to-load) feature and a new interior option.
The Model 3 now has a 16″ front touchscreen with improved resolution, a black headliner, V2L capabilities, Zen Grey interior in the Premium and Performance trims, as the White option has officially been discontinued, and 19″ Dark Nova Wheels, which are standard on the Model 3 Premium only.
🚨 Tesla has launched the Model 3 in China with a variety of new features and specs:
✅ 16” front touchscreen
âś… Black Headliner
âś… V2L Capability
âś… Zen Grey interior (Premium & Performance only)
✅ 19” Dark Nova wheels (Model 3 Premium only)
✅ Zen Grey Interior option… pic.twitter.com/ltTAEIYi2Z— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 1, 2026
The touchscreen in the U.S. version of the Model 3 is just 15.4″, so the newly upgraded screen is .6″ larger. Additionally, the Black Headliner, now standard on Model Y vehicles in the U.S., is coming to China.
Additionally, Tesla’s decision to end the white interior option has also made its way to the Asian market, as Zen Grey is the lighter color consumers can now go with. It is slightly different from the previously offered White option:
These options are available in China, Australia, and New Zealand as well, as Giga Shanghai serves those markets, bringing its mass-market vehicles to those countries in the South Pacific.
The Model 3 trims are now priced at:
- Rear-Wheel-Drive – 235,500 yuan (~$35,000)
- Long Range Rear-Wheel-Drive – 259,500 yuan ($38,700)
- Long Range All-Wheel-Drive – 285,500 yuan (~$42,600)
- Performance – 339,500 yuan (~$50,600)
These features have yet to make their way to the U.S., which might upset some buyers, but it is probably a good sign that Tesla will bring these changes to U.S. trims sometime next year. Potentially, these could come even sooner, as they could be used to stimulate demand for the year-end sales push.
Nevertheless, when things start at Giga Shanghai, they usually end up in the U.S. market. Tesla has also already started to install things like the Black Headliner and larger touchscreen in certain U.S.-built vehicles, so these things will be easy to implement across other vehicles in the lineup.
Elon Musk
The Pentagon taps Elon Musk to design the battlefield of the future
Hegseth named Elon Musk to help lead Project Meridian, a Pentagon study of future warfare.
Elon Musk has a new role in the Trump administration. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on war.gov Wednesday that Musk will help lead Project Meridian, a new Pentagon study meant to identify the weapons and technologies the U.S. military will need to fight wars decades from now.
Hegseth unveiled the project during his State of the Force address at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia. Musk will direct the effort alongside Anduril founder Palmer Luckey and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, working under Pentagon Chief Technology Officer Emil Michael. All three men were in attendance, and Hegseth said their first meeting would take place directly after the speech inside a secure compartmented facility, according to The Hill.
Hegseth said the group “will be focused on discovering, developing, and fielding the weapons and systems that our children and our grandchildren will need in their lifetimes, without any creative limitations or restrictions, on any future battlefield, from under the Earth to beyond the Moon.” He added that Meridian is not meant to produce new strategy or policy documents.
SpaceX to become America’s Military data backbone for missiles, drones, and warfighters
A memo released after the announcement gives Michael until January 28, 2027, to deliver findings, a window of 120 days. It names artificial intelligence, autonomy, directed energy, robotics and biotechnology as the fields expected to change how wars are fought. The results will come as a public report with a classified annex. The memo says the study will run through a partner organization it does not name, and it does not mention Musk directly. His role comes from Hegseth’s speech and a Pentagon press release.’
Musk had not commented publicly on the appointment as of Wednesday evening. This will be Musk’s first official advisory role in the administration since he left DOGE last year.
The mandate overlaps heavily with Musk’s companies. SpaceX is one of the Pentagon’s largest contractors, with 2026 defense awards topping $8 billion, much of it tied to launches and a suspected Starshield buildout out of Vandenberg. The Pentagon’s release says Meridian will examine domains “from subterranean depths to the cislunar frontier,” which maps onto The Boring Company’s tunneling and Starship’s lunar plans. Tesla’s work on autonomy and Optimus falls within the fields the memo lists.
Meridian was one of six initiatives Hegseth announced Wednesday. Another is a new Autonomous Warfare Command, which the department wants operating as a four-star combatant command by October 1, 2027.
The news lands a day before SpaceX is scheduled to fly a classified National Reconnaissance Office payload on Falcon Heavy, one of three launches the company has planned for Thursday.
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SpaceX set to launch astronauts and a classified Falcon Heavy mission on the same day
SpaceX plans three launches Thursday, including Crew-13 astronauts and Falcon Heavy’s first classified NRO mission.
SpaceX is lining up one of the busiest single days in its history, and the company offered a preview on Wednesday morning with a simple post on X: “Sunrise at pad 40.” The video and photos show Falcon 9 standing at Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral, roughly a day before it is scheduled to carry four astronauts to the International Space Station.
That launch is only the first of three SpaceX missions planned for Thursday, October 1, across both coasts.
Sunrise at pad 40 pic.twitter.com/J7Qme4VvIX
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 30, 2026
Crew-13 is targeting liftoff at 11:10 a.m. ET, with a backup opportunity Friday at 10:47 a.m. ET. NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins will command the mission, with NASA’s Luke Delaney as pilot and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov serving as mission specialists. According to NASA, Dragon is set to dock with the forward port of the station’s Harmony module around 8 p.m. ET, less than nine hours after launch. Watkins is the only member of the crew who has flown before, and Kutryk will become the first Canadian to reach orbit through NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
The Falcon 9 booster is flying for the third time after supporting Crew-12 and a Starlink mission, and it will attempt a landing at Landing Zone 40 beside the pad. That site made its debut in February when the Crew-12 booster touched down there, as Teslarati reported at the time. Crew-13 will relieve the Crew-12 astronauts, who have been aboard the station since the middle of February.
On the West Coast, another Falcon 9 is scheduled to lift off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in a window running from 2:18 to 3:16 p.m. ET, a flight NASASpaceflight lists as a Transporter rideshare mission.
The day is set to close at 11:53 p.m. ET, when Falcon Heavy launches from Launch Complex 39A with NROL-97, the first National Reconnaissance Office payload ever to fly on the rocket. SpaceX rolled the vehicle out to the pad Tuesday night. Its two side boosters, which previously flew GOES-U, ViaSat-3 F3 and NASA’s Roman Space Telescope, will return to Landing Zones 1 and 2, while a new center core will be expended in the Atlantic. The Roman launch took place on August 30, so NROL-97 will come barely a month later as Falcon Heavy’s third flight of 2026 and 14th overall.
NASA taps SpaceX to launch the telescope that could unlock new worlds
If all three Florida boosters land as planned, it would be the first time the Space Coast has seen landings at LZ-40, LZ-1 and LZ-2 on the same day, according to the Orlando Sentinel, which has warned residents in Brevard, Orange and Volusia counties that more than one sonic boom is possible.
The schedule arrives just three days after Starship reached orbit for the first time on Flight 14 from Starbase, Texas, deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites. If Thursday’s missions stay on time, SpaceX will have flown Starship, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy from four different pads in about four days.
Crew-13 is also the start of a longer run for Dragon. NASA recently added Crew-15, Crew-16 and Crew-17 to SpaceX’s contract in a $946 million modification, keeping Dragon as the agency’s only operational ride to the station while Boeing’s Starliner remains grounded.
Tesla launches improved Model 3 in China with V2L, new interior option
The Pentagon taps Elon Musk to design the battlefield of the future
