United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket completes second successful launch

United Launch Alliance (ULA) completed the second successful launch of its Vulcan rocket Friday morning, a key step in the future use of the rocket for national security missions.

The 202-foot tall Vulcan rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 7:25 a.m. EDT Friday morning, carrying an inert payload into space on a mission that, if successful, would qualify the rocket to carry payloads for national security missions. The Vulcan rocket is slated to replace the Atlas V rocket, first introduced almost 20 years ago.

"It just shows the growth of the industry, and the momentum of several activities that are going to happen in the next year or so that are the outcomes of a lot of years of hard work getting to this point. So that's really where I'm excited," said Space Florida President and CEO Rob Long, who is a retired Space Force colonel.

ULA Vulcan launch recap:Live updates from Cert-2 mission Friday from Cape Canaveral

A successful launch

After launching, ULA declared the rocket's flight a success.

"The success of Vulcan’s second certification flight heralds a new age of forward-looking technology committed to meeting the ever-growing requirements of space launch and supporting our nation’s assured access to space," said ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno. "We had an observation on one of our solid rocket boosters (SRB) that we are reviewing but overall, we are pleased with the rocket’s performance and had a bullseye insertion."

That "observation involved a bright shower of sparks that was seen flying from near the fiery plume of one of the Vulcan's solid rocket boosters about 38 seconds after liftoff.

"We will be off looking into that after the mission is complete. Other than that, the flight was nominal," Bruno said during the ULA launch webcast.

Crews initially scheduled liftoff for 6 a.m., pushed the target time back to 6:30, and rescheduled the launch within a few minutes of Cape Canaveral's 7:16 a.m. sunrise.

"It was a beautiful liftoff this morning. I think we're all really excited to see that. It's such a significant launch, in terms of our certification and where we're going with Vulcan. So it was just a tremendous accomplishment from this team," Megan LePien, ULA's Space Force program manager, said during the launch webcast.

With a successful launch Bruno said ULA has a pair of national security missions "in the pipeline," after which the company will roll into next year. During a Wednesday media roundtable, he said ULA will launch as many as 20 missions next year, split roughly between Vulcan and Atlas V rockets.

Rick Neale contributed to this story.

Max Hauptman is a Trending Reporter for USA TODAY. He can be reached at MHauptman@gannett.com