Blue Origin to Build ULA Vulcan Centaur Rocket’s Booster Engine; Tory Bruno Quoted

United Launch Alliance has chosen Blue Origin to produce a booster engine technology to power a launch vehicle designed for government and commercial satellite missions.

The Vulcan Centaur rocket’s first stage, fueled by liquefied natural gas, will use a pair of BE-4 engines from Blue Origin, ULA said Thursday.

ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno said the company has worked with the U.S. Air Force to finalize a certification plan for the launch vehicle.

Aerojet Rocketdyne, Northrop Grumman, L3 Technologies and RUAG will respectively equip the Vulcan Centaur with an upper-stage engine, solid rocket boosters, avionics and payload fairings.

The rocket is designed to generate up to 3.8M pounds of thrust at liftoff and carry payload of up to 56K pounds into low-Earth orbit.

ULA aims to conduct Vulcan Centaur’s first flight by mid-2020.