Firefly postpones its next launch attempt to review data
Firefly yesterday scrubbed its second attempt to launch eight cubesats for NASA and others using its Alpha rocket, postponing the next launch attempt in order to the review the ground system issue that caused the two launch aborts on the first launch attempt on July 1, 2024.
In a social media post, the company stated that it’s standing down “to give the team more time to evaluate data and test systems from the first attempt. … We will work closely with the range and our NASA customer to determine the next launch window,” Firefly wrote on X.
This would have been Alpha’s fifth orbital launch. No new launch date has been announced, though it is expected to occur before the end of this month.
Though it has only flown a few times (with some of those launches failures or only partially successful), Firefly’s Alpha rocket has a robust launch manifest, with its biggest contract with Lockheed Martin for 25 launches. It has signed deals to launch from Wallops Island and Vandenberg, as well as the Esrange spaceport in Sweden. And it also has a contract to build the first stage for Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket.
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Firefly yesterday scrubbed its second attempt to launch eight cubesats for NASA and others using its Alpha rocket, postponing the next launch attempt in order to the review the ground system issue that caused the two launch aborts on the first launch attempt on July 1, 2024.
In a social media post, the company stated that it’s standing down “to give the team more time to evaluate data and test systems from the first attempt. … We will work closely with the range and our NASA customer to determine the next launch window,” Firefly wrote on X.
This would have been Alpha’s fifth orbital launch. No new launch date has been announced, though it is expected to occur before the end of this month.
Though it has only flown a few times (with some of those launches failures or only partially successful), Firefly’s Alpha rocket has a robust launch manifest, with its biggest contract with Lockheed Martin for 25 launches. It has signed deals to launch from Wallops Island and Vandenberg, as well as the Esrange spaceport in Sweden. And it also has a contract to build the first stage for Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
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