Walls thinner than a dime. Range measured in AU.

To date, more than 280 Centaurs have flown. Its success stems from its high propellant mass fraction driven by efficient, lightweight structure, along with its high-performance propulsion. Centaur can restart its RL10 engines multiple times, enabling complex orbital insertions and deep space missions.

* In aerospace and astronomy, AU stands for Astronomical Unit, a convenient unit of length. It equals 149,597,870,700 meters (about 150 million kilometers or 93 million miles), which represents the approximate mean distance from Earth to the Sun.

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101 National Security Missions
ULA enables NASA's Exploration of the Universe
Rocket drawing

SPACE LAUNCH COMPLEX-41 // PROCESSING

Space Launch Complex-41, the East Coast home of the Vulcan and Atlas V rockets at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, employs a “clean pad” concept of operations to ready launch vehicles and payloads for ascent into space. The rocket elements are assembled atop a Vulcan Launch Platform (VLP) inside the Vertical Integration Facility (VIF) located adjacent to the launch pad. The platform and fully stacked Altas V rocket then travel by rail approximately 1,800 feet northward from the VIF to the pad for the final countdown, fueling and liftoff.

 
Launch pad breakdown

1. Advanced Spaceflight Operations Center (ASOC)

  • Launch Control Center 
  • Mission Director’s Center 
  • Mission Support teams
  • Launch Vehicle Horizontal Processing & Ordnance Installation

2. Delta Operations Center (DOC)

  • Offline Vertical Integration (OVI) 
  • Interstage Adapter (ISA)
  • Boattail, Base Module & Centaur Forward Load Reactor Deck
  • Centaur Processing and Staging

3. Amazon Payload Processing Facility

  • Spacecraft Processing, Testing & Encapsulation

4. Vertical Integration Facility (VIF)

  • Launch Vehicle Integration & Testing
  • Spacecraft Mate
  • Integrated Operations
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LAUNCH VEHICLE

Payload Fairing (PLF)

The spacecraft are encapsulated in a 17.7-ft (5.4-m) diameter medium payload fairing. The PLF is a sandwich composite structure made with a vented aluminum-honeycomb core and graphite-epoxy face sheets. The bisector (two-piece shell) PLF encapsulates both the Centaur and the satellites. The vehicle’s heights with the 5-meter medium PLF is approximately 205 ft. (62.5 m). 

Centaur 

The Centaur second stage is 10 ft (3 m) in diameter and 41.5 ft (12.6 m) in length. Its propellant tanks are pressure-stabilized and constructed of corrosion-resistant stainless steel. Centaur is a cryogenic vehicle, fueled with liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, powered by an RL10C-1-1 engine producing 23,825 lbs (106 kilo-Newtons) of thrust. The cryogenic tanks are insulated with a combination of helium purged blankets, radiation shields and spray-on foam insulation (SOFI). The Centaur forward adapter (CFA) provides structural mountings for the fault-tolerant avionics system and structural electrical interfaces with the spacecraft. 

Booster

The booster is 12.5 ft (3.8 m) in diameter and 106.5 ft (32.5 m) in length. The booster’s tanks are structurally rigid and constructed of isogrid aluminum barrels, spun-formed aluminum domes and intertank skirts. Booster propulsion is provided by the RD-180 engine system (a single engine with two thrust chambers). The RD-180 burns RP-1 (Rocket Propellant -1 or highly purified kerosene) and liquid oxygen and delivers 820,200 lbs (3.83 mega-Newtons) of thrust at sea level.  Five solid rocket boosters (SRBs) generate the additional power required at liftoff, with each providing 371,550 lbs (1.6 mega-Newtons) of thrust. The Centaur avionics system, provides guidance, flight control and vehicle sequencing functions during the booster and Centaur phases of flight.

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