Atlas V

The quoted numbers are the 401, the bare configuration: a single Russian RD-180 at 3,827 kilonewtons sea level, no strap-on solids, a four metre fairing, and 12,030 kilograms to low orbit at 28.7 degrees. Bolt five solids on and you have the 551, which reaches 18,850 kilograms. The vehicle is up to 58.3 metres tall on a 3.81 metre core.

The RD-180 is the story. An American national security launcher spent two decades flying on an engine built in Khimki, an arrangement that looked like sensible post-Cold-War procurement until 2014, when the annexation of Crimea turned it into a strategic liability overnight. Vulcan Centaur exists in large part because Congress mandated that the engine be phased out.

Price finished what politics started. Commercial pressure drove the 401 down from roughly 180 million dollars to 109 million during the early 2010s, and even that was not enough against a competitor amortising boosters across flights rather than pricing each airframe once. ULA stopped selling Atlas V in 2021 and closed the production line in 2024, having built exactly enough vehicles to cover signed contracts.

It has flown 110 times for 109 successes, including 100 consecutive missions without a failure between October 2007 and July 2026. Six airframes remain, all N22 variants reserved for Boeing Starliner, a spacecraft that has still not settled into service. A launcher with one of the best records in the business is now waiting on its passenger.