Threat Status goes inside ULA’s massive Alabama rocket factory. National Security Editor Guy Taylor sits down with Dan Caughran, Senior Vice President of Production Operations, and Gary Wentz, Vice President of Atlas and Vulcan Programs, for a rare look at how the Vulcan Centaur rocket comes together — from national security payloads to a $5 billion economic footprint in North Alabama. This project is sponsored by ULA.
[TAYLOR] The U.S. Space Force has utilized ULA’s Centaur upper stage section for some of its most demanding national security satellites, particularly because of the Vulcan’s ability to reach geosynchronous orbit some 22,000 miles from Earth.
We’re inside a factory in Decatur, Alabama of a company called United Launch Alliance, known as ULA in defense and national security circles. It’s one of the most advanced rocket producers in the U.S. space industry.
[WENTZ] We’re launching lower Earth orbit satellites for Amazon. And that’s about 50% of our business between that and the Space Force NRO business.
[TAYLOR] This is Dan Caughran and Gary Wentz. They’re giving me a tour of the company’s 2.4-million-square-foot factory in Decatur, Alabama. H
How many of these are you producing in a given year?
[CAUGHRAN] So you’ll see six in flow here. We’re on our way up to close to 25 vehicles per year.
[TAYLOR] Those vehicles are part of the massive 220-foot-tall Vulcan Centaur rockets, capable of delivering payloads of up to 30 tons into orbit high above the Earth.
The ULA Vulcan rocket has two main stages. The first, or lower stage, consists of the fuel tanks and two engines.
[CAUGHRAN] And these are the barrels that hold the fuel, either liquid oxygen or the liquid natural gas. We take those parts that we machine and start to weld them together to make the fuel tanks for the first stage in this particular area of the Vulcan vehicle. So we’ll take the five barrel panels, we’ll size them and weld them together using a process called friction stir welding. That will turn them into a barrel. From these towers, which we actually lift them out there, we’ll actually weld on a dome to the top end of it. So you see this combination here.
We’ve taken those domes that we saw being spun form, and we now have welded them into a ring. But here’s where we do the circumferential weld. So what you’re looking at there is the liquid oxygen tank. And then we will weld another barrel, just like you see over there. That will be welded to the back end of that, and that will be the liquid natural gas tank. So these are the finished products and these are in those stages of joining the different sections of the tank together to make the full-up booster, Vulcan booster tank.
This is the highly capable upper stage. This is where the satellite’s sitting on top of it and this is what precisely delivers those payloads to orbit.
[WENTZ] The government’s increasing the number of spacecraft that they’re wanting to put on orbit every year. This upper stage delivers it precisely where it needs to go, and then the spacecraft can separate and go on and continue its mission.
[CAUGHRAN] This is the front end of the upper stage, the Centaur V that flies on the Vulcan vehicle. So this is the top stage of the vehicle and what carries the payload to its final orbit. And again, because the upper stage operates for so long, in some cases it can be well over 9, 10 hours to do its mission. This is providing the thermal protection for the fuels that are inside there.
[TAYLOR] How cold are we talking?
[CAUGHRAN] Liquid hydrogen, you’re talking well over 400 minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Liquid oxygen is 290, negative 290. So both cryogenic fuels.
That’s why part of our process is to actually rotate this so that you keep that thermal condition consistent across the whole vehicle so this is literally final assembly for the second stage so this is where all the systems get integrated into the vehicle we will check out all those systems and then this stage is ready to be transported down to the rocket ship and delivered to the launch site. In fact the one behind you is totally complete and has the shipping fixtures on it
[TAYLOR] Gary, tell us just what are the Atlas and Vulcan programs and what’s really the core mission now of the Vulcan?
[WENTZ] The Atlas Vulcan programs, we manage the launch services for everything from our commercial launches, human spaceflight, to the most exquisite national security payloads from the Space Force, as well as the National Reconnaissance Office.
[TAYLOR] What is the Vulcan specifically, Vulcan Centaur, what does it bring that’s so special?
[WENTZ] Vulcan builds on the heritage of the Atlas and Delta family vehicles. It provides the government with the utmost capability to launch everything that they currently envision in the spacecraft.
[TAYLOR] Dan, how does this particular facility relate to these Atlas and Vulcan Centaur programs?
[CAUGHRAN] This facility, initially established for the Delta program, has a long history, great access to an incredible workforce in this North Alabama area. but also great access to the Tennessee River waterways that allow us to transport this large vehicle from Decatur through those river systems and over to Cape Canaveral Space Force Base, our station, as well as Vandenberg Space Force Base.
[TAYLOR] Essentially transporting the rockets initially by ship and then offloading them for launch, that takes quite a bit of time. How many rockets are being made annually at this facility? And is that ramping up or is it steady given the sort of generational increase in spending that the U.S. government is doing on space projects right now?
[CAUGHRAN] We’ve invested well over $300 million into this facility that will ultimately enable us to get up to 20 to 25 vehicles per year being produced out of this facility.
[TAYLOR] How many were produced in 2025, for instance?
[CAUGHRAN] We were about, of the Vulcan vehicle, we were about eight vehicles that was built. So we’re gradually ramping up.
[TAYLOR] United Launch Alliance has a headquarters in Colorado, but it has a long history here in Alabama. Where does that history start?
[CAUGHRAN] Actually starts in the late 90s, 1997 area, when this facility was built. And it’s continued to support the Delta IV, the Delta II, the Atlas V programs, and now Vulcan is the vehicle being built in this facility.
[TAYLOR] It’s kind of an interesting trend in recent years amid growing competition and threats in space in the great power realm with China and Russia. We’re seeing several major American defense technology companies invest their own money in manufacturing in the United States.
You just mentioned outlays that ULA has made with this facility. How much is ULA spending overall? And are there other projects nationally? And how important is that to continuing to grow American dominance in space?
[CAUGHRAN] So for the North Alabama area and this factory, on like a five-year economic impact, it’s over $5 billion over that period. So not only the jobs, close to 1,000 jobs that we create ourselves, but that network of over 70 suppliers in the Alabama area really is that investment in this capability that this state and this local area provides.
[TAYLOR] And Gary, can you walk me again just through the process of how some of these components, these massive components that we’ve seen here today, actually go from this facility to finally launching from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida or Vandenberg Space Force Base in California?
[WENTZ] I think the key thing is Dan’s team builds the rockets here in Decatur, Alabama, and then they’re transported to the launch site in pieces. And so the launch site teams assemble the rocket. They’ll assemble the booster, which is the first stage of the rocket, to the upper stage the centaur. And then we’ll mate the spacecraft and we’ll marry up, do all kinds of functional tests, make sure that everything’s working great before we launch. And then we have the capability at the launch sites, particularly on the east coast of Cape Canaveral, to be able to operate out of two integration facilities and that allows us to get to a cadence where we can launch on three to four day centers out of the Cape.
[TAYLOR] Looking forward, are you confident that there is the base of engineers, scientists, laborers, skilled welders in this market to sustain the kind of growth that you’re talking about?
[WENTZ] Yeah, we have a great workforce development partnership with all the local areas and schools around here. And so we have a great access to an incredible workforce, both on the skilled labor as well as the technical engineers and that type. It’s a great workforce base to draw from.
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