The United Launch Alliance rocket will be the first in a series of new launchers that could chip away at SpaceX’s hold over the space business.
A brand-new rocket lifted off early Monday morning from Cape Canaveral, Fla., sending multiple payloads on journeys into space.
Hours after the debut of the Vulcan rocket, a moon lander it carried built by a private company faced malfunctions that imperiled its mission. That did not diminish the launch itself, which was flawless and set up future missions of the vehicle, which was built by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Tory Bruno, the chief executive of U.L.A., summed it up tersely in a post on the social media site X.
“Launched on the open of the window. Perfectly nominal mission. Dead on bullseye orbital insertion,” he wrote.
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