SANTA FE, N.M. — An issue with the upper stage of a Firefly Aerospace Alpha rocket placed a Lockheed Martin technology demonstration satellite into the improper orbit on a Dec. 22 launch.
The Alpha rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 12:32 p.m. Eastern on a mission called “Fly the Lightning” by Firefly. The launch was originally scheduled for Dec. 20 but postponed two days due to weather.
The rocket’s ascent appeared to go as planned, and launch controllers reported that the upper stage had achieved a nominal transfer orbit. Firefly then said a second burn of the upper stage was planned to happen about 40 minutes later to circularize the orbit, followed by payload separation.
Nevertheless, Firefly didn’t provide an update in regards to the status of the launch for several hours. Within the meantime, tracking data from the U.S. Space Force showed two objects in elliptical orbits of 215 by 523 kilometers from the launch. That suggested the upper stage malfunctioned through the circularization burn.
Firefly confirmed in an announcement 12 hours after launch that the second stage malfunctioned. “Alpha’s scheduled stage 2 engine relight didn’t deliver the payload to its precise goal orbit,” the corporate said. “We’ll work with our customer and government partners to analyze the stage 2 performance and determine the foundation cause.”
The payload on the mission was a small satellite developed and funded by Lockheed Martin. The spacecraft, using a Nebula bus from Terran Orbital, was intended to display an electronically steerable antenna that might be used on future broadband satellites. The corporate planned to make use of the satellite to point out the antenna might be quickly calibrated and put into service.
Firefly said in its statement that communications had been established with the satellite “and mission operations are actually underway.” Nevertheless, the low perigee of the spacecraft’s orbit indicates it’s more likely to reenter inside several weeks.
This was the fourth launch of the Alpha, three months after it successfully launched the Victus Nox responsive space demonstration for the U.S. Space Force. A launch in October 2022 also reached orbit, however the smallsat payloads it carried reentered days after launch after being placed in an elliptical orbit quite than the next circular orbit. Firefly claimed the launch was a hit despite the early satellite reentries, saying the performance of each stages met requirements.
The primary Alpha launch, in September 2021, failed to succeed in orbit when considered one of its first stage engines shut down shortly after liftoff. The primary stages on subsequent launches have performed as expected.
Firefly had planned to extend the Alpha flight rate, with at the very least 4 missions scheduled for 2024 and 6 planned for 2025, Bill Weber, chief executive of Firefly, said in an interview in November. The corporate is working on recent production facilities able to increase to 24 Alphas a yr.
Firefly is balancing that work on Alpha with development of a primary stage for a new edition of Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket, the Antares 330, that will even be used on a brand new launch vehicle called MLV. Weber said the corporate hopes to have the Antares 330 able to enter service in mid-2025 and the MLV in late 2025.