Firefly's 1st Test Flight Lasts More Than 2 Minutes, With Successful Liftoff and Progression to Supersonic Speed

September 03, 2021

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Today we conducted the first-ever test flight of our Alpha rocket. Prior to the anomaly, we had a nominal countdown and lift off at 6:59 PM local time.  While we did not meet all of our mission objectives, we did achieve a number of them: successful first stage ignition, liftoff of the pad, progression to supersonic speed, and we obtained a substantial amount of flight data.

More than two minutes into the flight, Alpha experienced an anomaly resulting in an early end of the mission. At Firefly, our goal is to always look out for the safety of our employees, partners, and community. We are happy to report that there were no injuries associated with the anomaly.

While it’s too early to draw conclusions as to the root cause, we will be diligent in our investigation, in partnership with the FAA and Vandenberg Space Force Base. We will utilize the data we obtained from the test flight and apply it to future missions. Our engineers are currently combing through thousands of lines of ground and flight system telemetry in order to better understand what occurred.

We want to thank the teams at Vandenberg Space Force Base and Space Launch Delta 30 for their partnership in this launch and the FAA for their continued support. We will be providing further updates as more information becomes available.

Source : Firefly Aerospace, Inc