 Welcome Mark is the vice president of major development at United Launch Alliance and he is in this position He is responsible for the development of Vulcan I'm gonna let him do the rest of his introduction and jump right into the keynote But welcome we're thrilled to have you here today and excited to hear what you have to say Well, thank you crystal and good morning everyone. I think it's morning where all of you are I didn't bring a dog, but hopefully I can hold all of your attention here with some interesting discussions So I was going to talk through How to build a sustained presence in Cislunar space and what we view are some of the keys to that and Then talk a little bit about rockets and the role that you will a place With launch services in supporting the commercialization of space Why don't we go to the first chart And the next chart. Yeah, so this is a this is an overview of some of the different economic opportunities available in Cislunar space and what we really view as the key to a sustained presence is Really unlocking the Cislunar economy and finding, you know, economic models that work in Cislunar and Enabling us to have a sustained presence. If you look at this chart, you're all probably familiar with several if not all of these But they're all important and they all could really be an anchor tenant a Key business that would allow us to continue and sustain a presence in Cislunar anywhere from the upper left to Mining for rare materials of asteroids and other bodies in Cislunar To electrical power generation to support activity here on the surface of earth the upper right interesting one is the Development and production of propellant in space, which is actually the first kind of business model to support other businesses Operating in Cislunar and then on the lower right, of course the production of materials A lot of unique things you can do in zero g that you can't do here on the surface of the earth and actually manufacturing And we see, you know, these are all opportunities to really provide a establish a Cislunar economy and Have a sustained presence in Cislunar much what we've already started to see in Leo Over the last decade or so and I think other people here in this forum have already spoken about we see the real proliferation of business models operating in Leo and all of the the sustained presence that supports ULA plays a big role in this and we're very excited and we have a couple exciting missions coming up To support Cislunar anywhere from Leo to the moon Next year we have two launches on our new Vulcan Centaur rocket coming up and I'll talk some more about that in an upcoming chart But very exciting the first about the second half of the year We're going to launch the Astro botics peregrine lunar lander on a course to the moon On our first flight of Vulcan Centaur where they will deliver Commercial payloads and experiments to the surface of the moon all in a commercial endeavor in partnership with NASA So we're very excited about that and then we'll come back a few months later with Vulcan Centaur And we'll launch the inaugural mission of the Sierra Nevada dream chaser to the International Space Station providing cargo support cargo services Another very important mission Providing sustained operations on the space station for years to come and that flight of the dream chaser It's just one of many that are planned on the ULA Vulcan Centaur launch vehicle We have a strong history of supporting lunar exploration beyond what we're doing here for Peregrine With multiple missions one of the most significant in recent years was the L cross mission that we launched on an Atlas vehicle a number of years back L cross was significant in that it provided key data that was able to confirm the presence of Liquid in the form of ice Near the poles of the moon, which as we already talked about could be a key element of a sis lunar economy Especially when you get into things like propellant generation in space to support operations in sis lunar or beyond You're beyond the economic models that work in sis lunar We think we all have to be good neighbors in as we do business in sis lunar and part of that is Being very diligent in how we operate our systems and at the end of life how we safe and dispose of those systems And obviously one of the key things I'm referring to here is orbital debris We have designed all of our rockets and continue to put in additional features To assure that they are safely disposed of at the end of their life we view this as a Partnership the best way to approach this is a partnership between government industry To make sure we develop the proper mitigation strategies for orbital debris and enact the proper regulations that we can all abide by To make sure as I said that we're good neighbors and this truly can be sustainable presence Let's go on to the next chart and talk a little bit about rockets Okay, so on the left you'll see some cross sections of our atlas and Vulcan rocket So we've been launching atlas and delta rockets into ula was formed and they served us extremely well To the right, you'll see the new Vulcan Centaur rocket that I referred to that will launch next year with those inaugural missions with the astrobiotics and ternovata missions Vulcan is being developed To take over for atlas and delta and do everything those systems do and then some more in terms of both capabilities During launch and on orbit as well as increased Performance the chart in the middle highlights that performance contrasting atlas in blue and vulcan in red for the lift capability or performance To three different reference orbits So you can see that Vulcan greatly exceeds the atlas performance for any of those three And Vulcan is pretty unique and we've worked really hard in that Vulcan in that single core vehicle provides heavy lift class performance that normally you see in a three-body vehicle like a delta for heavy And so that was uh took a lot of work But it was really a breakthrough for us in providing that level of performance and then the of course the affordability that comes with a single body Vehicle so we'll be on ramping Vulcan next year and over the couple years after that progressively transitioning our customers and their missions from atlas and delta to Vulcan Vulcan's the product of competition um We found ourselves Five years ago atlas and delta had served us very well But our customers requirements continued to evolve technology moved forward and we found ourselves in a more competitive environment Meeting to develop a new launch system And that's what vulcan was born out of we've been working on it very hard And we feel that our strategy and our product has been validated by a number of these recent competitive acquisitions I already mentioned serenavada and astrobiotics, but probably the most significant was just a few weeks ago where Vulcan centaur and ula was selected by the us space force To be one of the two providers under their phase two acquisition to launch all national security space payloads for the us government From 2022 through 20 27 So a significant award Through this process. We were found to be the best value in the lowest price of all the providers Competing for that. So that was something we're very proud of and really Validated all of our work that has gone into developing The vulcan system and we're very excited as we move toward first launch next year Pictures on the right Just to show you some progress as we move toward that first launch and the upper right is the new vulcan mobile launch platform That's going through the final stages of assembly and test down at cape canaveral in preparation for launch next year In the middle is a picture from our factory in decatur, alabama Where we build all of our rockets including vulcan and showing some investments and automated tooling to produce the Primary structure of the rocket and in the lower right, you'll see some pictures of that primary structure coming together for the first Flight configuration of that rocket and that picture was taken a couple Couple months ago. It's making good progress there As I spoke about national security and our big phase two win I just want to emphasize that national security space Is nothing new to ula and our very first mission as ula was in support of national security space And we've launched dozens and dozens and dozens of mission Missions all with a hundred percent mission success and support of national security space In fact this year with the formation of the us space force We launched the first two missions for them back in march. We launched the a hf6 Payload on an atlas and came back about two months later at the cape and launched the x37 b space plane Also on an atlas. So we're very proud to be able to continue this history of supporting national security space As that transitions from atlas and delta and we move on to vulcan Ula's commitment to our customers extend obviously beyond national security into both civil and commercial markets On the civil side. I talked about our efforts in sys lunar whether that was from leo and space station all the way to the surface of the moon um And we will continue to build upon those and support exploration Beyond sys lunar to mars and we've played a significant role in exploration of mars for several decades um If you weren't aware everything that has ever driven around mars is currently driving around mars or His plan to drive around mars in the near future Has been launched on a ula vehicle either an atlas or delta We're very proud of that and that includes the perseverance rover Which is on its way to mars and was launched about a month and a half ago on an atlas vehicle with pinpoint accuracy And we'll be landing on the surface of mars in february of next year And we're very excited to play a role in that and continue to support exploration Beyond earth and beyond sys lunar So that's a little bit an overview of you know Our our take on sys lunar and a sustained presence and the role that we're playing to support that as a launch service provider um I'm going to wrap it up here And uh turn it over to all of you out there for any questions that you may have on these topics Great. Thank you so much mark for giving us a sense of what you all are working on right now But also how that might tie into sustainability. And so we're excited to delve into a few of those comments I've got a lot of questions coming in the first two are kind of on a similar topic. So I'm going to start with those Can you talk a little bit more about ula's efforts to responsibly dispose of upper stages and comply with debris mitigation practices? Sure, we'd be happy to so You know, we have been and we'll continue to do design all of our missions so that we are either Disposing of the upper stages the item of of concern here that presents an orbital free risk if not properly mitigated And we have design and we'll continue to design all of our missions and so reserving performance So that we can either deorbit the stage Send it beyond earth orbit Or in some cases at least put it in an orbit that is not Of a concern a non active orbit Vulcan centaur will increase our flexibility further and that's a higher performance rocket So we have additional performance that we have reserved To to make sure that we can safely dispose of that And we will we've been doing this for some time and we will continue to do it It's just part of our baseline of how we operate and how we do business Great. Another question that just came in. Well, what's the progress on developing green rocket fuels that are less toxic Toxic than some of the historical fuels like hydrazine That's a good question. Um, we have a pretty limited use of hydrazine on our rockets currently We do not use hydrazine for the main propulsion for either stages We use a limited amount of hydrazine currently On the upper stages of both our atlas and delta and vulcan to start with will as well But vulcan we have a plan to transition off the use of hydrazine in the coming years The upper stage of vulcan centaur uses liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen for main propulsion for doing our large propulsive maneuvers And we are developing a attitude control system. That's where we currently use the hydrazine for vulcan That will run off liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen actually converts the gaseous form first before Supplying it to the thrusters to provide all the attitude control and the fine adjustments to the velocity and position of the vehicle After we're on orbit and that's our plan and we will first fly one of those thrusters A couple years down the road and a couple years after that plan to be fully transitioned off the use of hydrazine So that was an excellent question I'm glad someone asked that because we're really proud of our efforts there Yeah, it popped up right before I went to ask you a question. I couldn't resist Another interesting one here. Uh, the fa worked on rewriting a number of launch regulations How will this affect, uh, ula and do you see this as a step towards sustainability? Yeah, we have you know, we have participated like we said earlier. We talked about orbital debris mitigation We really view it as a partnership um and you know, we Provided input and worked collaboratively with the faa and the other providers To make sure that those um regulations, you know met our needs met the needs of our nation And the entire community um, I think what's important is the faa and the other Regulatory bodies play an important role And making sure that we all as we talked about in one example earlier that we're all good neighbors We all do our part. We all have common standards And we're all held accountable to those standards So there is an important role for the faa and the other regulatory bodies and making sure that we operate sustainably and uh, we're very Encouraged by the um partnership and participation that the faa has afforded us in this process and look forward to continuing to work with them and the other users in the community Kind of building on that a little bit. There's also a question about commercial sector best practices So what is ula's position on the increasing trend of the commercial sector? Coming up with their own standards and norms of behavior in regards to space That's a that's a really good question I'm I mean ula we're often viewed as a national security launch provider That's certainly the cornerstone of our business But we operate across both the national security space civil and commercial markets And we have to comply with a plethora of different regulations depending on where we operate and um you know we We often um, we have our own standards too that we have developed and we often use commercial standards As well, I think what the key is in all these cases Is partnering with whoever the regulatory body or your customer is to to Demonstrate that your standards meet the intent of and accomplish the same thing They may do it in a different way And so it's important through all those whole processes that is everyone is open minded and focus on what the objective or the intent is And are flexible about how that is accomplished And so even like I said for our national security space missions, which we have very stringent requirements Um, we have a lot of different ways. We do things To support that customer and this is just an example Um, but the objective the intent and the outcome in the end is the same And I think those same kind of practices can be applied to how we view the use of commercial standards And so yeah, we encourage that Great um kind of looping back to one of our first questions. There's an interesting one here about ssa Does ula use commercially provided ssa to track its launch vehicles and launch related objects? We currently do not So we currently we're launching out of the eastern and western ranges Here in the united states, obviously cape canaveral and vandenberg air force base And so we currently use all the infrastructure and assets provided by the us space force for tracking of our vehicles All right This one I mark mahal and ask a great question and one of which i'm very curious about as well um What measures have you taken to ensure mission success operating in a much more hazardous space weather environment in cis lunar space? Let's say good question. Um, it's a hard one, right? It's a hard one. Um Most so so space weather in the environments of going beyond we'll say leo And we do have missions. Um, you know, we do direct insertion right to geostationary orbit That's something that we have done in the past and we will continue to offer an action bulk and is Even more capable and that's something that is we think of great value um, so right now most of our missions last from you know From 20 minutes in duration to maybe eight or 12 hours And so we certainly have the benefit of time on our side, you know Versus having exposure for for days or weeks or years or beyond So that has been, you know our experience and as a launch vehicle provider that experience is very different than if you're a spacecraft or satellite manufacturer where you're going to operate in those environments for A much longer time We we do see increased need for our launch services and having extended duration We expect that to be You know extending into days and weeks, you know to as that launch service Extends and so we'll build on upon, you know, our current experience operating in sys lunar for those relatively shorter durations So kind of building on that actually one of my colleagues asked a question He's going to be hosting a panel on sys lunar sustainability in just a couple days And I was kind of joking in a lot of our pre meetings that when we picked our panel topics back in january and february Sys lunar wasn't getting nearly as much attention as it is now a lot has changed in the last few months And you guys are obviously a big part of that and so we'd love to hear your thoughts on some of what's going to happen for that panel And so his question is Are regulations which reflect space sustainability requirements truly burdens them or are they a crucial part of running a long lasting sustainable space company? Like how do you see that interaction with regulation? Sure. Well, so first of all, yeah, it is interesting how the interest in sys lunar kind of ebbs and flows We've been talking it for five eight years We're a launch vehicle provider, but we view we're a key element of that and you know, we've gone so far to hold workshops, you know, really looking at sys lunar and how to have a sustained presence and the various economic models Your question about, you know, regulations and how regulations So i'll be very interested to watch the next panel and see how this is Discussed in that panel. I think the biggest obstacles to sys lunar aren't regulations. It's getting back to finding the business models and that have inherent economic value that will, you know, promote the investment and the risk taking necessary To operate sustainably and for the long duration and sys lunar So that's a a launch vehicle provider's perspective Um, we have a couple of more market-based questions So one question here is what are the market opportunities for a triple core vulcan centaur rocket? Well, that is an interesting question. So that's someone who's been following ula pretty carefully so The picture of the rocket I showed earlier and what I talked about that the basic Vulcan centaur with solid rocket motors strapped on augment performance that single core vehicle provides What we would traditionally classify as heavy lift performance on what we would, you know, do with a delta four heavy Currently You know, we are continually studying, you know, evolution of our product line I mean, we're not we're we're in the middle of still developing a rocket and upgrading that But we're not going to rest on our laurels and we're going to continue to evaluate what the market needs the idea of a three core vulcan heavy is a significant jump in performance and something that could support a lot of Emerging but I would say not mature needs and both Leo and sys lunar So it's really going to be so we got a lot in our plate right now Getting the first launch on vulcan with the basic vehicle and there's a number of other variants of that that will be introduced and upgrades to that That will be introduced in the coming years at that inaugural launch And so we have our plate pretty full but ultimately it's going to be the customers and the market That drives where we had with product development And a three core vulcan heavy is just one of the many things that we're looking on looking at right now And that's that's, you know, pretty far out in the horizon Great, I agree. That was a quite specific one, but sometimes it's really good opportunity to engage on that Another one kind of in that same vein does you la foresee resuming work in the future on the aces upper stage to support sys lunar activities Sure. So aces was a concept that we're working on five eight years ago Much like we talk about the future and way out in the horizon of potential Three body vulcan heavy vehicle aces was a concept That looked at all the possible different things that we could do with an upper stage To support emerging needs across all the markets and and some keys to it were high performance extended mission duration A lot of other things like that And so we did a lot of studies we did a lot of we invested in a lot of technology development to really assess the feasibility of some of the innovative features of aces And that has served us well because a lot of those um that original aces work has its fingerprints and what we currently see is our New version of centaur the centaur five that we're fielding with vulcan and so the um, you know significant growth and performance of the upper stage and a lot of the other technologies the Transition away from hydrazine to a hydrogen oxygen upper stage attitude control system. Those were all things That uh, you know, we're started the genesis was those original advanced program studies of aces So so aces certainly those studies five eight years ago certainly served us well And it put us on a good path forward here for the evolution of our upper stages And we will you know continue to evolve our upper stage To meet the needs of the market going forward great um What i'm going to do now is ask one final question just to kind of close it out We really appreciate you being here today. I know I learned a lot about what ualia is working on and it's just really good to hear From new voices, especially since we all are now chatting with each other at various events it's easy to focus on our work and Not necessarily follow exactly what all of the developments are so thank you for that I kind of want to take a little bit back to space sustainability and so One of the last questions I have is you know, what do you see is the future of space sustainability? And what is industry's role in that? You know, how can they enable and ensure that the environment continues to work in a way that works for everyone I think You know really the key to sustainability. We talk about economic models um In viable economic models what goes hand in hand with a viable economic model is having A robust infrastructure and an affordable infrastructure for doing business Those kind of go hand in hand and you can see obviously examples and on Across the economy Where many business models just weren't viable until you had the basic infrastructure in place and so So launch is obviously not b, but it is one of the a key element of the infrastructure And so industry's role in making sure that we have low cost reliable responsive access to space is foundational for assist learner and obviously i'm a launch guy from a rocket company and so um So that's you know, we view that as as fundamental And uh, so what's important right is that we continue to invest in these systems Improve their reliability affordability and really listen to what our our customers need and obviously Be good neighbors good users of this environment and do so responsibly and uh as we talked about earlier Relative to orbital debris and so forth