Next-Generation Medium Lift

Northrop Grumman and Firefly Aerospace are moving rapidly to mitigate a bottleneck in launch capacity in the medium lift segment and increase launch site diversification for government and commercial satellite customers. With existing heavy-lift vehicles often booked to capacity and small-lift vehicles limited by their mass to orbit, medium-lift vehicles provide an ideal solution for affordably delivering medium payloads to LEO and beyond. Positioned between small-lift and heavy-lift rockets, the new Eclipse™ Medium Launch Vehicle (MLV) (Figure 1) will add significant payload mass to orbit and volume beyond the capacity of the existing Northrop Grumman Antares 230+ launch vehicle. The Eclipse MLV will utilize the existing Antares launch infrastructure at NASA Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) in Virginia, with significant modifications now underway at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport’s Pad 0A to accommodate this larger and higher-thrust vehicle. This paper will examine the case for medium-lift rockets highlighting their role in bridging the gap in the current launch services market and supporting the deployment of thousands of new satellites in the coming decade. It will also familiarize the reader with the Eclipse launch service and the vehicle’s capabilities.