Kara Carlson, Austin American-Statesman
Fri, September 22, 2023
Cedar Park-based Firefly Aerospace completed a mission for the U.S. Space Force this month with a record-breaking turnaround, successfully flying its flagship rocket, called Alpha, with just 60 hours' notice to receive and prepare a satellite payload and then being given a 24-hour launch window.
Launching a rocket or getting a satellite to space currently takes months and years of preparation. But what if it could be comparable to the speed and ease of shipping a package from Austin to San Fransisco?
While that might seem out of this world, Bill Weber, CEO of Cedar Park-based Firefly Aerospace, expects this could soon be a reality.
"If you want to ship a package to San Francisco, you don't have to plan for nine months to do it. You show up at a shipping location with your box and say, 'Here it is." Weber said. "At Firefly we are making space for everyone. ... Anything that needs to get (to space) in the future can go, provided that it is conditioned the right way and packaged the right way. It can go within 24 hours or faster."
The Cedar Park-based company just passed a major test as it works towards this goal. Last week, the company completed a mission for the U.S. Space Force with a record-breaking turnaround, successfully launching its 95-foot-long flagship rocket, called Alpha, which carried and deployed a satellite for the U.S Space Force as part of the "Victus Nox" mission.
Firefly, which was founded in 2014 in California before moving to Cedar Park later that year, is among an emerging group of launch providers serving the small satellite market. The company has contracts with multiple commercial and government customers, including NASA and Lockheed Martin.
Firefly's latest mission, which was led by the U.S. Space Force's Space Systems Command, was designed to test the nation's capability to respond rapidly and get a payload, such as a satellite, into orbit during a national security threat.
"We had no idea when we would get the call," Weber said.
Last week, Firefly had just 60 hours to receive and prepare a satellite payload to launch, and it then was given a 24-hour launch window. The company ended up launching in the first available window, 27 hours later, setting a new turnaround time record for launches of this nature.
It marked the first time any company had successfully completed such a mission. Typically, this sequence of events would take six to nine months, not including receiving the satellite. Prior to this, the fastest this type of sequence had been completed had been 21 days, according to the Space Force.
Firefly Aerospace has now launched its 95-foot-long Alpha rocket three times.
In a statement, Lt. Gen. Michael Guetlein, commander of Space Systems Command, said the mission's success "marks a cultural shift" in the United States' abilities to deter adversaries and respond in the time needed to deliver capabilities to the nation's warfighters.
Weber said it also marked an important milestone for the industry's commercial customers, which already have desire to get payloads, or cargo, up to space faster.
"If launch companies like Firefly can do that and do it regularly and get better at that ... then the commercialization of space becomes more and more of a reality," Weber said.
The mission marked Firefly's third launch ever. The company first launched its Alpha rocket in 2021, during which the spacecraft was able to achieve liftoff and fly for two and a half minutes but was detonated by Space Force officials who were overseeing the launch when it tipped sideways and went off course before reaching low Earth orbit. The company successfully reached orbit for the first time during its second launch in October 2022.
Prior to its latest mission, the company had undergone months of preparation, which Weber likened to a sports team training for "the big game you circle on the calendar." Weber said this included eliminating inefficiencies and drilling to get processes that took days and weeks down to minutes and learning to do certain processes in parallel rather than in a row.
"Once you get the team prepared at that level, you want keep performing at that level," Weber said. "That's the way we're going to launch going forward, continuing to be as responsive as we can."
What's next for Firefly?
The mission comes amid several busy years for Firefly, which has rapidly grown its team and capabilities. In recent months, the company has announced missions with NASA as well as commercial launch agreements with L3Harris Technologies. Last year, the company also gained new majority owners, when private equity group AE Industrial partners acquired a majority stake and led a $75 million in a funding round for the company.
Firefly makes a number of products, including rockets, in-space vehicles (such as its Blue Ghost lunar lander, which will be used to bring equipment to the moon's surface) and several "space utility vehicles," named Elytra, a type of reusable, space-based vehicle designed to take cargo and other spacecraft out of low Earth orbit to distances as far away as the moon.
Firefly makes several "space utility vehicles," named Elytra, which are a type of reusable, space-based vehicle designed to take cargo and other spacecraft out of low Earth orbit to distances as far away as the moon.
The company has also been building a massive facility outside of Briggs, which is northwest of Cedar Park. The company has Cedar Park offices, and it is able to launch from facilities in Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. In 2021, Cedar Park City Council approved a 10-year $4.3 million economic development agreement to help Firefly grow its facilities and add hundreds of jobs.
The company's current headcount is about 700 people, a number that has nearly doubled in 18 months, according to Weber. The CEO said the company plans to stay at this number for the next year or so as it works on its next missions.
Those will include another launch scheduled this year for its Alpha rocket and subsequent plans to launch once each quarter next year, according to Weber.
"We can probably do more than that," Weber said. "But my concern as CEO is pushing too hard and too fast for no apparent reason. I would rather be a dependable repeatable producer in our market than force an anomaly. Anytime there is any kind of a launch anomaly it reverberates in our sector, and we need dependability in the worst way. So, Firefly is going to make sure we're not one of those where we can."
Firefly will also be working on its medium launch vehicle, which Webber said is being built and tested in Briggs currently. The company expects this rocket will be able to deliver its first payload at the end of next year.
Earlier this year, Firefly announced a $112 million contract with NASA to deliver multiple lunar payloads in 2026 using its Blue Ghost spacecraft, which will place a satellite into lunar orbit and then deliver two research payloads on the far side of the moon.
Firefly plans to use its Blue Ghost lunar landers as part of two NASA missions in the next several years.
The company also announced a separate $18 million contract where the company will provide radio frequency calibration services from lunar orbit as part of the same mission. The mission will involve the company's Elytra Dark orbital vehicle.
Weber said the Blue Ghost lunar lander is expected to complete its first mission next fall, which will involve orbiting and touching down on the moon's surface. Elytra will also fly in the first half of next year.
Weber said balancing all these projects can be a challenge, but there is a lot of overlap between Firefly's "launchers," or rockets, landers and orbiters. He said there is commonality in the product lines, propulsion systems and other technologies, which are all built and tested in the same facility by many of the same engineers. For example, all use carbon composite structures. The company said its soon-to-open facility in Briggs will specialize in this type of technology.
"These are very much hand in glove capabilities," Weber said. "We are an end-to-end space transportation company using similar structures and similar propulsion through all of that so it's busy, but it's the right kind of focused busy."
Weber said while the company has "a ton going on," he has been working to make sure Firefly is deliberate in what the company does, and, just as importantly, what it doesn't take on, something he believes he has so far been successful in doing. He added this latest launch leaves success and good spirit to build on.
"You can't bottle that energy up. It's contagious," Weber said. "And we love doing it right here in Austin."
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