Getting ready for a launch can seem painfully slow—from the moment the spacecraft is built to the launch can feel like an eternity. Now United Launch Alliance (ULA) announces a new service called RapidLaunch™ which provides the customer the fastest schedule from the initial order to launch service in the industry today—in as few as three months. RapidLaunch™ is designed to transform the nature of launch acquisition, contracting, and integration. More importantly, it provides the power to transform satellite operators’ fleet management and operations.
World View-4 will launch this Friday, September 16, on ULA's Atlas V.
Revealing the new service, Tory Bruno, ULA CEO and president says, “The priorities of all of our customers include ensuring their spacecraft launches on schedule, securing the soonest possible manifest date and completing the mission with 100 percent success. To address these priorities, we have been working on this offering for more than a year, which allows our customers to launch in as few as three months from placing their order.”
Kent Lietzau, ULA’s vice president of Business Development adds, “We have availability on our Atlas V manifest in 2017. This service is fast and comprehensive. Our experience base launching all major platforms means confidence for your mission. To accommodate our RapidLaunch™ customers, we have added additional hardware to the production line, so that we can offer additional vehicles without an impact to our existing customers. We have also moved customization for any particular launch to the last three months of production.”
ULA offers schedule certainty allowing on-time on-orbit revenue, reliability with the lowest insurance rates, and orbit optimization to extend the lifetime of the spacecraft. In addition to the contracted launch date for the mission, ULA can also assign the spacecraft as a backup to an earlier mission in the event that the earlier mission needs to move, the spacecraft can be pulled forward into that launch slot.
“ULA is transforming the future of space launch, making it more affordable and accessible for our customers,” said Bruno. “New, innovative services like RapidLaunch™ are just one way that we are making that future vision a reality.”
With more than a century of combined heritage, ULA has successfully delivered more than 100 satellites to orbit that provide critical capabilities for troops in the field, aid meteorologists in tracking severe weather, enable personal device-based GPS navigation and unlock the mysteries of our solar system.