Firefly’s Alpha Rocket Successfully Reaches Orbit for the Fourth Time

Firefly Aerospace made a historic trip to orbit this morning, carrying a payload from Lockheed Martin. However, the public is still waiting for an update on the successful deployment of the satellite to its destination orbit – indicating a potential issue with the rocket’s second stage.

Today’s launch is the fourth-ever flight of Firefly’s Alpha rocket, taking place from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base. Named Fly the Lightning, this commercial launch for customer Lockheed Martin aimed to deliver Lockheed’s demonstrator payload, known as the Electronically Steerable Antenna (ESA) technology demonstrator, to low Earth orbit.

At approximately 9:40 am local time, Firefly tweeted its plans to relight Alpha’s second stage engine to circularize its orbit in around 40 minutes, followed by the deployment of the Lockheed Martin payload. However, as of four hours later, the company has yet to provide an update.

The ESA technology demonstrator is an electronically steered antenna array that will significantly reduce the calibration time for Lockheed, a process that typically takes months with traditional on-orbit sensors. Integrated on a satellite bus built by Terran Orbital, the ESA demonstrator payload is at the forefront of innovation (Lockheed owns nearly 7% of the outstanding shares in Terran).

While the mission’s main goal is to deploy the payload, Firefly emphasized that its mission team is also tracking the total working hours from payload receipt to launch readiness, showcasing its capability to provide rapid launch capabilities to the Space Force.

Rapid launch capability is a significant focus for the Space Force, which was demonstrated during Firefly’s last Alpha mission, setting a new record for launch readiness with just 24 hours to complete final launch preparations, encapsulate the payload, and mate it to the rocket.  » …
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