Darrell Etherington
Sat, October 1, 2022 at 5:36 AM·1 min read
There’s another space-proven private launch company in the club — Firefly Aerospace. The company’s small payload Alpha rocket reached orbit successfully early on Saturday morning after taking of from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
This is a major achievement for Firefly, which has been a lot to get here: The company originally began operations as Firefly Space Systems, which went bankrupt, and was then reborn as Firefly Aerospace after its assets were acquired by Max Polyakov’s Noosphere ventures in 2017.
Tom Markusic, who founded the company and led it as CEO, also departed the post in June. Markusic shifted into a technical advisory and full-time board member role, but his departure was preceded by the very public leaving of Max Polyakov, who in February shared a post pointing the finger at the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), the Air Force and other U.S. agencies for his forced exit. Polyakov is a UK citizen but was born in Ukraine.
Firefly launched its first Alpha rocket just over a year ago on September 2, 2021, but the launch vehicle exploded mid flight, prior to achieving orbit.
That launch, like today’s, carried a number of payloads for actual paying customers. The difference is that Firefly claimed “100% mission success” for today’s flight, including successful deployment of all three payloads on board to their target orbits.
Firefly now ranks among the small but slowly growing club of private space companies that have attained orbit, including SpaceX, Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbit and Astra.
Firefly launches rocket from Vandenberg, a year after mid-air explosion
Janene Scully
Sat, October 1, 2022
A fledgling rocket made its second flight early Saturday morning from Vandenberg Space Force Base, achieving several key milestones as it went “to the black” and delivered its cargo.
Liftoff of the Texas-based Firefly Aerospace ’s Alpha booster occurred at 12:01 a.m. from Space Launch Complex-2.
Foggy conditions kept most would-be spectators from seeing the flight of the 95-foot-tall rocket. A faint rumble could be heard in Santa Maria and other areas.
A report of second engine cutoff, or SECO, prompted cheers and applause from the control room.
“Orbit achieved. Alpha’s in the black,” a Firefly team member said.
Ninety minutes after launch, tracking stations on the ground confirmed the payloads had deployed. A short time later, company representatives declared on Twitter “100% Mission Succcess.”
The Alpha rocket’s engines fire at Vandenberg Space Force Base as the Firefly Aerospace achieves a successful second flight early Saturday morning. Screenshot via Everyday Astronaut/Firefly Aerospace
Firefly officials labeled the launch a technology demonstration flight as they aimed to prove Alpha’s ability to carry payloads into space, filling the need for small satellite customers by providing an economical flight to orbit.
More than a year ago, the Alpha rocket’s flight ended in a fiery failure following liftoff from Vandenberg.
The firm’s road to a second rocket’s liftoff wasn’t smooth thanks in part to glitches and unfavorable weather.
The liftoff came after a Sept. 11 countdown ended with helium pressure troubles. A planned Sept. 12 launch was scrubbed due to forecasts calling for windy conditions and the team looked toward a week later, but a strong rainstorm prevented the attempt.
Friday’s attempt also encountered a last-minute abort leading to the decision to try again Saturday and succeed at getting off the ground and into space.
With launch facilities at both Vandenberg and in Florida, Firefly hopes to accommodate monthly flights by late 2022.
The rocket, employing carbon composite materials, carried a much lighter cargo load.
Since it was a demonstration flight, the research and development payloads amounted to about 77 pounds, much less than the 2,200 pounds Alpha is designed to carry.
On board Alpha were some small spacecraft aiming to test technology for future use in space.
For instance, the Teachers in Space Serenity payload will collect data about atmospheric pressure, temperature and radiation via a matched pair of Geiger counters, one wrapped in experimental radiation protection material and one unwrapped.
NASA’s TechEdSat-15 carries various experiments including the primary one to test technology for de-orbiting satellites in the future. The exo-brake device has been designed to survive much higher temperature environments.
Another experiment on TechEdSat-15 includes the Beacon And Memory Board Interface (BAMBI), which optimizes internal and external data transfer from the nanosatellite.
“The TechEdSat-NOW series has multiple research goals including using the exo-brake to de-orbit high-altitude nanosatellites at end of mission to reduce issues related to orbital debris,” according to the team. “Additionally, drag modulation has uses for sample return from low-Earth orbit as well as tailoring orbits during aero-pass maneuvers for future planetary applications.”
The TechEdSat-15 project is managed by NASA Ames Research Center and funded by the NASA Ames Engineering Directorate with San Jose State University being a partner.
Libre Space Foundation’s PicoBus deployer will release several picosatellites with a mission focused on testing various technology for telecommunications.
The next launch from Vandenberg will be a Space Exploration Technologies Falcon 9 rocket carrying the next batch of Starlink satellites with liftoff aiming for 4:56 p.m. Monday.
Noozhawk North County editor Janene Scully can be reached at jscully@noozhawk.com.
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