The age of Vulcan has begun... The first flight panel is being bump formed.

Vulcan Centaur is built on more than 120 combined years of launch experience. An evolution of the flight proven, highly successful Atlas V and Delta IV vehicles, Vulcan Centaur introduces a balance of new technologies and innovative features to ensure a reliable and affordable space launch service. Launching in 2021.

Now that is a beautiful sight! A pair of Blue Origin BE-4 engines installed on a Vulcan Centaur booster for pathfinding operations in preparation for launch in 2021.

The Vulcan Centaur PTT [Pathfinder Tanking Test] booster was transferred from the SPOC [Spaceflight Processing Operations Center] to the pad today [Aug. 25] for a series of fueling tests in the coming weeks

Hmmm. What do you suppose this is? I wonder if it has anything to do with the Vulcan rocket?

Previously from Bruno:

Engines!! Vulcan Flight BE-4s heading to the build stand.

Here is a pic of BE-4 flight 1. And that's just from the combustion chamber up. The bell is below the platform (and out of sight) for easy access for Blue Origin's skilled technicians to assemble this part of the engine.

And from earlier, a photo of the first Vulcan booster:

"We're not going to fly before the end of the year," ULA Chief Executive Tory Bruno said in an interview with two reporters.

He added ULA's customer Astrobotic, a robotics firm using Vulcan to launch a lunar lander, asked for the launch date to be moved to the first quarter of 2023 to buy more time to finish the lander's development.

Astrobotic's request officially axes ULA's previous goal to launch Vulcan by year's end, a target already imperiled by development delays with the rocket's engines that are being built by Amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos' space company, Blue Origin.

"The engines are later than our original schedule that had us flying in December, and it would put a lot of pressure on December," Bruno said.

Flight Engine (FE) 2 is installed. FE1 will join it soon.

In a call with reporters Feb. 23, ULA Chief Executive Tory Bruno announced the date for the long-awaited inaugural flight of the rocket as the company gears up for a series of tests of the rocket at Space Launch Complex 41. The launch will carry Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander, two demonstration satellites for Amazon's Project Kuiper broadband constellation and a payload for space memorial company Celestis.

"We are now targeting the fourth of May so we plan our manifest around that and be ready to fly that payload when it comes in," Bruno said. ULA will have a window of about four days to conduct the launch.

Several factors led ULA to select that date. One is the mission requirements of Peregrine, the primary payload on the launch, which has a window of only a few days each month to fly its trajectory to the moon.

A second is a series of tests of the Vulcan Centaur rocket, currently in the vertical integration facility adjacent to the pad. Bruno said the rocket will roll out to the pad "a few days from now" for tanking tests followed by at least one wet dress rehearsal where the vehicle is fully loaded with propellants and goes through a practice countdown, stopping just before engine ignition.

That will followed by what ULA calls a flight readiness firing, a wet dress rehearsal that ends with a firing of the BE-4 engines in the booster at about 70% of rated thrust for 3.5 seconds. "That is more than adequate for us to understand all of those systems," he said.

After the flight readiness firing, the rocket will return to the integration facility for payload integration, then be rolled back to the pad for launch.

In parallel, ULA and Blue Origin are finishing the formal qualification of the BE-4 engine, which Bruno described as the "pacing item" for the launch. "It's taking a little bit longer than anticipated."