ULA, AF Develop Off-Site Vertical Integration for Indoor Lifting Operations; Jim Sponnick Comments

United Launch Alliance has worked with the U.S. Air Force to implement off-site vertical integration on the Atlas V rocket’s Centaur upper stage and other structural components.

The company said Tuesday OVI works to drive down the number of lifting operations at the Cape Canaveral Vertical Integration Facility and relocate them indoors to the Delta Operations Center.

These changes help mitigate launch processing delays caused by weather conditions, provide a safe working environment and reduce time between launches, ULA added.

“We are very pleased to have successfully completed the first [OVI] for the upcoming Mobile User Objective System launch,” said Jim Sponnick, vice president for the Atlas and Delta programs at ULA.

“[OVI was] developed in collaboration with our Air Force customer to support launch manifest needs and enable continuous improvement to these critical launch operations.”