ULA saw success during 2020

New at ten -- as 2020 winds down -- many companies are reflecting on this challenging year with the pandemic.

Tonight waay 31's will robinson-smith spoke with the president of united launch alliance.

He learned about the challenges and victories in 2020 for u-l-a... and what the aerospace company hopes to achieve in the new year.

If you didn't know there was a global pandemic going on -- you might not guess it when listening to tory bruno.

Decatur is hopping!

We have 31 rocket stages in flow right now.

So, it is a very busy rocket factory with all of the configurations in flow at once.

Bruno is the ceo and president of united launch alliance.

He said even though covid hasn't derailed their ability to launch five times this year -- covid brought some challenges to places, like its decatur manufacturing facility.

And even though the cases themselves are a relatively small number for us, we take very aggressive mitigations when someone does test positive.

And so, whoever they were in contact with will be immediately quarantined for a number of days or tested before they can come back and, of course, the factory itself is cleaned.

2020 did bring several successes for the company -- from launching the first space force mission in the spring to sending the mars 2020 rover on its way to the red planet over the summer.

Bruno says now they are eyeing the launch of their new vulcan centaur rocket.

Will robinson-smith bruno says there are two vulcan v's that are being manufactured here in decatur right now and they also have two be-4 engines that are from blue origin that are on site.

However, bruno said it will still be some time before those be-4 engines come from here, at the blue origin manufacturing facility in huntsville.

Two be-4 engines are used in the main stage of the vulcan centaur rocket.

We anticipate that we'll fly a handful of vulcans first with the infrastructure at kent and in texas as they transition too and then ramp up to full production in huntsville.

So, not yet, but it is coming.

Bruno says 2021 will be a busy year for the company -- highlighted by 10 planned launches -- including a crewed launch of boeing's starliner and the delivery of the first commercial lunar lander to the moon aboard a vulcan centaur rocket.

Astrobotic, believes they will be ready, and we believe they will to, to go to space in the fourth quarter, a little bit closer to the end of the year.

This was their first space craft and they need to get it just right.

The vulcan will take to the skies in late 2021.

Reporting in decatur -- will robinson-smith -- waay 31 news.

Thanks, will.

As he mentioned -- ula is scheduled to have 10 launches this year.

Those include four national security launches, three launches for nasa and three commercial