United Launch Alliance (ULA, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin) – plans to start 2026 year as a mission for national security, Vulcan Centaur rocket, which will launch USSF-87 for the US Space Force. The start is scheduled for 2 February 2026 year from the SLC-41 launch complex at the Space Force base at Cape Canaveral.
USSF-87 will launch into geosynchronous orbit two satellites of the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program — GSSAP-7 and GSSAP-8. The launch will take place in the VC4S configuration, which includes four solid-fuel boosters to provide additional payload capacity, required for direct launch into geosynchronous orbit.
The rocket entered service later, than planned, due to delays in the development of the BE-4 engines, ground infrastructure work and the Space Force requirement for two successful certification flights. SpaceX has flown most of the NSSL missions during this period, while Vulcan has accumulated a backlog of more than two dozen booked launches under the NSSL Phase contract 2.
The USSF-87 payload is part of the Space Force's GSSAP grouping, which provides space monitoring in the area of geosynchronous orbit. Companions, manufactured by Northrop Grumman, are maneuverable and equipped with optical sensors to track the characteristics of objects in and near geostationary orbit, which helps avoid collisions and monitor activities in orbit. Although the Space Force continued to implement incremental upgrades to the GSSAP, they noted, that the current system is to be replaced by the end of the decade with a new architecture called RG-XX.
For Vulcan, however, the main emphasis is not on the cargo, and on the pace. Representatives of the Space Forces said, that expect ULA to gradually work out the accumulated list of NSSL missions, but refrained from defining specific terms, when Vulcan can reach a stable operating rhythm.
Source: https://spacenews.com