Closing Bell - Manifest Space: Vulcan Centaur Liftoff with United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno 1/8/24

Episode Date: January 8, 2024

In its maiden flight, United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur lifted off from Cape Canaveral in its first-ever flight and launched the U.S.’s first lunar landing attempt since the Apollo era. For ULA, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, this was a pivotal mission—and the beginning of a new era for the company in a rapidly shifting launch environment. ULA CEO Tory Bruno joins Morgan Brennan to discuss the maiden mission, the company’s plan for Vulcan, and reports of ULA being on the sale block.

The first flight for a new rocket and launch of the first lunar landing attempt for the U.S. since the Apollo era, five decades ago. At 2.18 Eastern, Monday morning, United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur lifted off from Cape Canaveral in a maiden flight a decade in the making. It launched an uncrewed robotic lander for Astrobotic that could, if all goes according to plan, become the first privately owned spacecraft to successfully land on the moon. ULA, which is a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, had a lot riding on this mission, as CEO Tory Bruno discussed in an exclusive

interview shortly after launch. This was tremendously important for our position in the marketplace and for the government. We replaced four families of rockets in 51 configurations with this single Vulcan. It's part of what allowed it to become so affordable that it also means this is the platform. For ULA, this was the first of two certification flights necessary to begin carrying out national security missions. Launch price undisclosed, but Vulcan is believed to be much more competitive with industry leader SpaceX and comes as ULA is on the sale block, something Bruno declined to comment on. As for Astrobotic, it's now headed to the moon before attempting a soft landing on February 23rd. On this episode, Bruno discusses the first flight

and the business plan for Vulcan. I'm Morgan Brennan, and this is Manifest Space. Tori Bruno, CEO of United Launch Alliance, thank you so much for joining me. It's great to speak with you. You just had liftoff about an hour and a half ago. Walk me through this maiden flight so far of Vulcan Centaur. Oh my gosh, we are so thrilled here. You know, this is the culmination of years of work and an important capability for the nation and all our customers. So of course we started, you know, a day ago, we rolled the rocket to the pad and we prepared it. And then we entered into this launch cycle and we went right at the open of the window.

The flight was completely nominal, straight down the pipe, as we say. And I can't show you the numbers because it hasn't been cleared yet by, you know, Global Trade and ITAR and all that. But I can tell you that this was another dead-on bullseye. Unheard of for a first flight. That's incredible. So we can say mission success so far. Certification one has cleared that first hurdle. What comes next? Certification two. So our next mission will be just a couple of months from now, and we'll fly Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser to LEO for cargo to the space station and another super exciting mission. Meanwhile, of course, Astrobotic will continue on its journey to the moon,

which initially takes about four days to get out there, but then they have to do some gravity assists to come in and land so two weeks from now or so we will have the first commercial lunar mission ever to the surface of the moon uh which is pretty incredible because it's been five decades since we've seen people or american uh or robotics make its way to the surface of the moon. Very, very exciting and historic. This is going to open up a whole new future of development on the moon and research and exploration. It's a whole new epoch for our species off this planet. So for Vulcan, it's been a decade in the making.

You and I have been talking about it for years as you've developed the rocket. I've been to the facility to see how development was underway. I guess just walk me through everything that has gone into this moment to have this new rocket that you're now going to be using essentially as your workforce for all missions moving forward? Oh my gosh, what a journey this has been. I came here in 2014 and I came here to transform this company from what our nation needed back in 2006 to what it now needs in 2024. It was a complete business transformation of the company itself, a consolidation of four families of rockets and 51 different configurations into

this super versatile and incredibly powerful, and by the way, much less expensive Vulcan. And this flight is the culmination of all of that. When you say much less expensive, what's the price tag? Oh, we're not releasing pricing unless you're buying one. But I could tell you it's something in the neighborhood of half of what an Atlas cost when I got here. Okay. Reusability, is that going to factor in at any point or no? It will. Absolutely it will. This is a unique kind of rocket.

Its architecture is for what we call high energy, the most difficult directly injected orbits. All other rockets in the world are optimized for LEO. That means when our booster goes, it doesn't get halfway to LEO like other people's boosters. It goes all the way to LEO. We are deep into space by the time we're done. So we use a different kind of reusability. In our case, we won't save propellant to fly home with. We will separate the expensive part of the booster, the engines, re-enter them behind a revolutionary new type of re-entry technology, and then recover and reuse them. When does that process start happening?

That'll happen just after a few years. We need to fly a few more Vulcans, collect some detailed data on those environments that we'll experience, and then find exactly the right time for our customers to work that into the manifest. And of course, Blue Origin is supplying the engines, the BE4 engines. They worked as advertised with this first mission. I guess, how is that relationship, that partnership going, that supply chain evolving? That relationship is going great. Dave Limp, the new CEO, was there with me today.

That is also a massive technical accomplishment. An engine of that size in methane is really something very novel. And there were technical challenges along the way, and it took longer to finish the development. But ultimately, it was absolutely worth it. And to have a first launch where everything is completely nominal, especially these brand new engines that have never flown before, it's remarkable. I've developed over 36 systems. I've never had one this clean on the first flight. That's amazing. So is the plan still for assuming everything goes the way it needs to for seven launches of Vulcan this year and then it ramps from there? And it ramps up. By the time we get into the back half of 2025, we expect to be flying in total 25 missions a year

every two weeks. So when we got all done with this beautiful mission, I told the team, okay, that's great. And I, you know, we just got to be able to do that every two weeks. Which is a very aggressive manifest, especially for looking at ULA's launch history. How does that speak to this new era that we're in that's both driven by government demand, but also commercial demand. Yes. And it's just tremendously important to all of our customers. And I'll start with national security. Our nation is facing just tremendous challenges, both from Russia, but especially China, in being able to get in front of that with our access to space and our ability to keep space as a peaceful domain is absolutely critical. This platform is going to play a big role in that, especially because we

specialize in those very difficult, unique to national security kind of orbits. That's what that high energy is about that we discussed. The other thing that is happening is this revolution of high bandwidth, low latency, high speed internet in LEO, a tremendous increase in the demand of lift taking the nation, the world really, into a state of scarcity in lift that's probably going to last the better part of a decade, if not longer. And of course, introducing this vehicle with this very, very high tempo for both kinds of missions will be critical to supporting that. In terms of the customer base, I guess how many missions are already accounted for? Oh, we have 90 missions in backlog. And for Vulcan, we have 70 missions in backlog, which is unheard of. To have sold 70 Vulcans without having flown one yet is unbelievable. Speaks to the confidence that

people have in ULA. And I can tell you, I am very thrilled and a little bit relieved to have satisfied and justified that confidence here just about an hour and a half ago. I'm sure. The other 20 missions, those are Atlas? Yes. Okay. So, you know, I'm going to ask, I'm going to ask you a question because everybody's been saying a lot's been riding on this mission from a business standpoint too, with all the reports that ULA is on the sale block, an update for us. Well, if I knew anything about that, I wouldn't be able to talk about it. So the reports that Blue Origin, Cerberus, possibly Textron have been putting bids in there or at least expressing interest? No comment? No comment. Okay. So how

does all of this position ULA now for 2024 and beyond? How should investors, how should the general public and industry think about the role of ULA in this launch industry that has, quite frankly, changed so dramatically in the last five, 10 years. This was tremendously important for our position in the marketplace and for the government. We replaced four families of rockets in 51 configurations with this single Vulcan. It's part of what allowed it to become so affordable that it also means this is the platform. And what we learned today is that ULA can continue that tradition of perfect mission success.

And that even on a first flight of a major space launch vehicle, it was completely nominal. And like I said a moment ago, dead on bullseye. Great, and I'm gonna comment on the mustache And like I said a moment ago, dead on bullseye. Great. And I'm going to comment on the mustache because, Tori, you and I have met. We've spoken many times. The mustache is unusual.

I don't think I've seen it before. It's very nice. It's very handsome. It's a launch superstition. You know, as technologically intensive as this industry is, as rocket science is, only baseball is more superstitious. And for a first flight of a vehicle, somebody on the senior leadership team has to grow a mustache. And Jessica didn't step up, so it had to be me. Well, Tori Bruno, congratulations on the major milestone today. Thoroughly appreciate the time, as always.

Congratulations coming off the maiden flight of Vulcan Centaur. Thank you, Morgan. We are so happy. That does it for this episode of Manifest Space. Make sure you never miss a launch by following us wherever you get your podcasts and by watching our coverage on Closing Bell Overtime. I'm Morgan Brennan.