ULA sets date for final rocket flight of ‘dependable Delta’

United Launch Alliance (ULA) has confirmed that the final Delta flight will take place at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on March 28, marking the end of a six-decade service by the reliable family of rockets.

The Colorado-based spaceflight company announced this news on social media on Tuesday.

The 16th and final mission of the Delta IV Heavy will involve deploying an intelligence satellite into a geostationary orbit for the National Reconnaissance Office.

“The dependable Delta, a key player in American rocketry for over 60 years, is getting ready for its last mission to carry a national security payload for the U.S. and its allies,” ULA stated in an online post:

The dependable Delta — one of the pillars in American rocketry for 60+ years — is preparing for its final mission that will carry a national security payload to serve and protect the U.S. and our allies.#DeltaIVHeavy #NROL70 preview: https://t.co/7HC1Opbp20#TheDeltaFinale pic.twitter.com/43fvzKPxz4

— ULA (@ulalaunch) March 12, 2024

The Delta IV Heavy, which made its first flight in 2004, consists of three boosters and bears a resemblance to SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy vehicle, which also uses three Falcon 9 rockets for additional power to deploy payloads to a higher orbit.

ULA, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin since 2006, closed its Delta assembly line in Alabama last June after completing the 389th and final Delta rocket.

The first successful Delta launch dates back to 1960 when it carried a communications satellite into orbit for NASA. ULA has been gradually phasing out flights for other rockets in the Delta family, including the Delta IV Medium, a single-booster vehicle that had its final launch in 2019.

The Delta IV Heavy, along with the Atlas V, is being replaced by ULA’s Vulcan Centaur rocket, which had its inaugural mission from the Kennedy Space Center in January. The new Vulcan rocket propelled the commercial Peregrine spacecraft towards the moon, but the mission encountered a propellant leak early on, causing the Peregrine to fail to reach the lunar surface.

ULA has a busy schedule ahead with at least 70 Vulcan missions lined up, many of them for the Pentagon and Amazon’s Kuiper project, which aims to provide internet service from space similar to SpaceX’s Starlink. To meet the demand, ULA has expanded its Alabama factory to ramp up production of the new Vulcan rocket.