Firefly Aerospace launch overview

Category: Launch overview
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Credit: Firefly Aerospace

Firefly Alpha is a two-stage orbital expendable launch vehicle developed by the American aerospace company Firefly Aerospace. This rocket was specifically developed to carry small and light commercial satellites into space. Firefly Aerospace designed the Firefly Alpha rocket to launch a 1000 kg payload to a 200 km low Earth orbit or a 630 kg payload to a 500 km Sun-synchronous orbit. The first launch of a Firfely Alpha rocket happened on 3 September 2021 from a leased launch pad at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Learn all about the different launches of the commercial Firefly-Alpha rocket from the American space company Firfely Aerospace thanks to this overview! 

Firefly Aerospace launch overview

No. Date launch Rocket Launch base Orbit Payload Patch Mission succes?
1 03/09/2021 Vandenberg Space
Force Base
(California)		 LEO
  • usa Serenity (Teachers in Space)
  • usa Hiapo (Hawaii Science and Technology Museum)
  • usa BSS 1 (Benchmark Space Systems)
  • Spain FossaSat 1b (FOSSA Systems)
  • Spain FossaSat 2 (FOSSA Systems)
  • Spain GENESIS-L (AMSAT EA)
  • Spain GENESIS-N (AMSAT EA)
  • Greece Qubik 1 (Libre Space Foundation)
  • Greece Qubik 2 (Libre Space Foundation)
  • usa Spinnaker-3 / Firefly Capsule 1 (NASA / Firefly Aerospace)
 Firefly-Alpha

Failure
2 01/10/2022 Vandenberg Space
Force Base
(California)		 LEO
  • usa Serenity 2 (Teachers in Space)
  • usa TechEdSat 15 (NASA Ames Research Center)
  • Spain GENESES L (AMSAT EA)
  • Spain GENESIS N (AMSAT EA)
  • Greece Qubik 3 (Libre Space Foundation)
  • Greece Qubik 4 (Libre Space Foundation)
  • Spain FossaSat 1b (Fossa Systems)
  • usa Firefly Capsule 1 (Firefly Aerospace)
 Firefly-Alpha

Success
3 15/09/2023 Vandenberg Space
Force Base
(California)		 SSO
  • usa VICTUS NOX (U.S. Space Force)
 Firefly-Alpha

Success
4 22/12/2023 Vandenberg Space
Force Base
(California)		 LEO
  • usa Electronically Steerable Antenna demo (Lockheed Martin)
 Firefly-Alpha

Partial failure
5 04/07/2024 Vandenberg Space
Force Base
(California)		 LEO
  • usa CatSat (University of Arizona)
  • usa KUbeSat-1 (University of Kansas)
  • usa MESAT1 (University of Maine)
  • usa R5-S4 (NASA)
  • usa R5-S2-2.0 (NASA)
  • usa Serenity (Teachers in Space)
  • usa SOC-i (University of Washington)
  • usa TechEdSat-11 (NASA)
 Firefly-Alpha

Success

Images: Firefly Aerospace

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Kris Christiaens

This article was published by FutureSpaceFlight founder and chief editor Kris Christiaens. Kris Christiaens has been passionate and fascinated by spaceflight and space exploration all his life and has written hundreds of articles on space projects, the commercial space industry and space missions over the past 20 years for magazines, books and websites. In late 2021, he founded the website FutureSpaceFlight with the goal of promoting new space companies and commercial space projects and compiling news of these start-ups and companies on one website.