End of an era: Last ULA Delta IV Heavy triple-core rocket to lift off from Cape Canaveral

Marketed as “the most metal of rockets,” United Launch Alliance’s massive triple-core Delta IV Heavy roars to life amid a blazing hydrogen fireball on the launch pad, with raging flames billowing and blackening its orange boosters seconds before liftoff.

Heavy-metal-music pyrotechnic comparisons aside, Rob Long has a soft spot for the retiring mega-rocket — as do many of thousands of employees involved with the program the past two decades on the Space Coast. He worked for 3½ years as the National Reconnaissance Office’s mission manager preparing for the agency’s first Delta IV Heavy launch: NROL-26 in January 2009 from Cape Canaveral.

And Long said he considers the Delta IV Heavy “near and dear to my heart.”

Now, ending an era in American spaceflight, the 16th and final Delta IV Heavy rocket is scheduled to lift off Thursday, March 28, from Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. ULA has yet to release a target launch time. The mission also marks the 389th and last flight of the Delta program, which dates to 1960.

ULA is replacing the retiring rocket with the next-generation Vulcan, which logged a successful maiden flight in January from the Cape. Crews can configure the flexible, less-expensive Vulcan with zero, two, four or six solid-rocket boosters to accommodate an array of orbital missions.

“We’re into reusability, and we’re into new ways of doing business. On one hand, it’s nostalgic. And it’s personally a great memory for me. But at the same time, I think it speaks to just moving forward in the industry — and not looking back,” Long said.

The historic rocket will soar skyward with a classified payload on the NROL-70 national security mission, conducted in tandem with the NRO and the Space Force’s Space Systems Command. The massive rocket launches the NRO’s heaviest satellites.

FLORIDA TODAY asked ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno about the Delta IV Heavy retirement last month during an interview at the SpaceCom convention in Orlando.

“It’s a beautiful rocket. It’s launched amazing missions. It’s the most metal of all rockets.