Firefly Aerospace Just Successfully Reached Orbit
After two previous attempts with varying results, Firefly Aerospace just announced that they successfully launched their third mission with Alpha and reached orbit. This mission came somewhat as a surprise because it had to do with the U.S. Space Force and military operations. We had known that the launch was going to happen sometime soon but Firefly didn’t reveal the exact date.
This was because Firefly themselves did not know exactly when the launch was going to be. Specifically, the purpose of the mission was for the company to demonstrate a responsive space launch. Meaning they get the rocket ready and launch within a 24-hour notice from the U.S. Space Force. Last night was the official launch call and Firefly managed to deliver the payloads successfully.
This is a very big deal for the company as they begin to ramp up Alpha’s launch cadence and begin work on a medium-lift launch vehicle. Here I will go more in-depth into the third launch, exactly how it went, Firefly’s upcoming plans, and more.
First Succesful Launch
Starting a few weeks ago on August 30th, Firefly notified the public that the Firefly team was standing ready for the 24-hour callup for the VICTUSNOX responsive space mission. At the time they officially entered the “hot standby phase” and began waiting to receive the notice to launch and final orbit requirements. This was until late last night when they tweeted saying, “We did it y’all! Today was an incredible success for the Space Force, the Firefly team, and our nation after nailing the #VICTUSNOX responsive space mission. We launched our #AlphaRocket and deployed the satellite at the target destination following a 24-hour notice.”
As far as what happened during the mission, upon receiving the notice to launch and orbit requirements from the U.S. Space Force, Firefly completed all final launch preparations, including trajectory software updates, payload encapsulation, transport to the launch pad, mating to Alpha, and fueling, within 24 hours. Alpha then launched at the first available window, 27 hours after receipt of launch orders. It’s important to point out that likely because of the military mission agreement and 24-hour notice, Firefly hasn’t released any actual launch footage. Instead we got a few images of the mission and footage from the public as the rocket lifted off at night over California.
Looking at the flight profile, Firefly reported that the flight began with a nominal countdown and liftoff at 7:28 p.m. PDT on September 14 and progressed seamlessly through each stage of flight, including stage one main engine cutoff (MECO), stage separation, and stage two ignition. Alpha then deployed the Millennium Space Systems satellite at the target destination in low Earth orbit. Firefly also successfully tested an Alpha stage two relight and targeted re-entry.
Right after the mission, Bill Weber, CEO of Firefly Aerospace said, “Today was an incredible success for the Space Force, the Firefly team, and our nation after nailing this complex responsive space mission. Our combined commercial and government team executed the mission with record speed, agility, and flexibility, adding a critical capability to address national security needs” he said.
Technically, this third mission could be considered the first fully successful launch in the company’s history. The first launch took place just over two years ago and lasted around 2 minutes before an anomaly occurred and Firefly activated the Flight Termination System. Initial reviews of the flight data indicated that an electrical issue caused the shutdown of one of the four first stage Reaver engines. The second launch was one year ago and managed to reach orbit and deploy multiple payloads. While Firefly deemed the mission a success, soon after the launch reports came out that the payloads had re-entered the atmosphere sooner than expected. This suggested that they had not been properly deployed in orbit.
The press kit provided by Firefly ahead of the launch said that the satellites would be placed in a 300-kilometer orbit after the upper stage performed a circularization burn. However, it was reported that Space Force tracking data initially placed the objects into orbits with a perigee of about 220 kilometers and apogee of 275 kilometers. This caused the payloads to decay rapidly. According to the Space Force’s Space-Track database, three of the objects reentered by Oct. 5 and the fourth, the Alpha upper stage, reentered on Oct. 7. Hopefully we receive more information on this third flight in the coming weeks, however because of the nature of the mission, this might be all the info we get.
Busy Future
With the success of this flight, Firefly has a lot of work to do as they prepare to ramp up launch cadence significantly. At the end of the post launch statement Firefly is quoted saying, “Building on today’s success, Firefly is ramping up Alpha production and testing for multiple upcoming launches, including missions in support of Lockheed Martin, NASA, the NRO, and more.”
In reference to this list of missions, the next launch we can expect to see will be with NASA. Here, Firefly will launch the Elana 43 mission. In this case, Firefly was selected by NASA to provide launch services as part of its Venture Class Launch Services Demonstration 2 (VCLS Demo 2) contract. These launches can tolerate a higher level of risk than larger missions, and they help demonstrate the capabilities of launch vehicles like Alpha that support a new launch class and provide more access to space for small satellites and spacecraft. When selected, the company president commented, “Firefly is pleased to have been selected by NASA for this operationally challenging mission. We applaud NASA’s commitment to the nation’s emerging small launch industrial base and look forward to supporting America’s civil space launch needs for many years.”
The mission involves the launch of two CubeSat constellations to a 550 km Sun-Synchronous Orbit, separated by a minimum of 10 degrees in plane change. As far as a launch date, Firefly has it marked as To Be Determined, which likely means it will be another few months or so at the earliest.
To put in perspective the future launch goal of the company, earlier this year they said in a statement, “Firefly continues the production of multiple rockets at its Texas manufacturing facilities using all the lessons learned from existing flights and testing. Firefly is scheduled for six Alpha launches to take customer payloads to space in 2023, and 12 more in 2024″ they said. Obviously, this is quite an ambitious schedule and maybe a bit out of reach but it shows the future plans of the company.
After this mission with NASA, the company has a few more with the agency including plans to land on the Moon. Scheduled to launch on Firefly’s Alpha vehicle in 2024, the Elytra mission will demonstrate the responsive on-orbit capabilities of Firefly’s new space utility vehicle. As the first of many missions utilizing multiple Firefly vehicles, the demonstration is intended to lay the groundwork for Firefly’s end-to-end mission solutions.
If all of these different missions and projects weren’t enough, the company is also preparing for its first mission to the Moon. Firefly’s first Blue Ghost mission will deliver 13 commercial and government payloads to the lunar surface in 2024, including 10 NASA-sponsored payloads as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. The Blue Ghost lunar lander will provide data, power, and thermal resources to enable payload operations through transit to the Moon, for an entire lunar day (about 14 Earth days), and well into the freezing lunar night. This launch will not utilize the company’s Alpha rocket but instead SpaceX’s Falcon 9.
In addition to more Alpha launches, Firefly continues to work on its medium-lift launch vehicle. Last year in August both Firefly Aerospace and Northrop Grumman announced that they had joined forces to provide a new medium launch vehicle to serve commercial, civil and national security space launch markets. The new rocket will utilize seven of Firefly’s Miranda engines and leverage its composites technology for the first stage structures and tanks, while Northrop Grumman provides its avionics and software, upper-stage structures and Castor 30XL motor, as well as vehicle integration and launch pad operations.
Back in March, Firefly completed risk reduction testing for critical Miranda engine components. “We are making significant progress in the development of our Miranda engines that started less than a year ago,” said Bill Weber.
The risk reduction testing was successfully completed for Miranda’s main fuel valve and the throttle valve hot seal design. The hot seal was tested several times during routine Reaver engine hot fires. Due to the commonality of Firefly’s engine designs, the team can conduct robust flight-like testing and validate performance for both Alpha and MLV. “We built prototypes and successfully tested Miranda’s most complicated components first, and now we’re in the final stages of building the first development engines,” said Brigette Oakes, Ph.D., Director of Propulsion at Firefly. “Our engines are designed to allow for the natural evolution to considerably higher thrust.” We can expect more testing and progress in the near future.
Conclusion
Firefly Aerospace just successfully launched its third-ever mission. The launch was very unique as Firefly had prepared for a 24-hour launch notice. Once they received the notice they managed to get Alpha off the ground in 27 hours and deploy the payloads. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.