United Launch Alliance’s new-generation Vulcan Centaur rocket completed its first U.S. national security flight on Tuesday evening, lifting the U.S. Space Force’s USSF-106 mission to geosynchronous orbit from Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 41 at 8:56 p.m. Eastern Time (00:56 UTC Wednesday). The launch occurred three minutes before the close of the one-hour window after an unhurried countdown that included a late shift of the target liftoff time and green-board polling across mission teams. Flying in its VC4S configuration, the 62-metre-tall vehicle combined a methane-fueled core powered by two BE-4 engines with four strap-on GEM-63XL solid boosters, delivering more than 3.6 million pounds of thrust at liftoff. The Centaur V upper stage, equipped with twin RL10C-1-1A engines, executed a direct-to-GEO profile to deploy Navigation Technology Satellite-3 and other classified payloads for Space Systems Command. The success marks Vulcan’s third flight and its first under the National Security Space Launch programme, a milestone as ULA transitions away from its legacy Atlas V and Delta families. Meeting the Space Force’s performance and schedule requirements positions Vulcan to compete routinely for high-energy defence and intelligence missions later in the decade.