Vulcan's first mission will carry a commercial lunar lander built by Astrobotic and a payload for Celestis. The latter will contain the ashes of people who wanted to be buried in space as part of a memorial service.
Previously, ULA intended the flight to include two demonstration satellites for Project Kuiper, but ULA separately
ULA's path to the first Vulcan launch faced several delays earlier this year, including the explosion of an engine during testing by its supplier Blue Origin, Following the incident, Bruno told CNBC in a "Manifest Space" podcast interview that the company still planned to fly its
Once Vulcan launches, ULA plans to launch "several times" in 2024, Bruno said, before ramping to a rate of every other week by the second half of 2025. The company to its previously government-heavy backlog for Vulcan.
"It does change the nature of our business. It makes it a lot more balanced. Before we were probably about 80% government. And now with our other commercial work in Amazon Kuiper constellation, it's about 50-50," Bruno said. "That's a lot healthier place to be, because when one is out, the other is still fine."
— CNBC's Morgan Brennan and Michael Sheetz contributed to this report.
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