Main Engine Cut Off

Yesterday, ULA posted some photos of the dual engine Centaur for AV-080—the Atlas V that will fly the uncrewed Starliner demo flight—in final production. Another angle, posted by Tory Bruno, shows two Dual Engine Centaur stages side-by-side, and ULA confirmed that the other is for the first crewed Starliner flight.

It’s good to see this sort of hardware coming through the production lines. I’m excited to see ULA launch one of these brawny Centaurs. The last—and only—flight of a Dual Engine Common Centaur was 16 years ago—over four and a half years before ULA was formed.