Posted on 04/29/2025 11:47:48 PM PDT by Red Badger
A Firefly Alpha rocket experienced a launch anomaly that left a Lockheed Martin satellite in a significantly “lower than planned orbit”, the aerospace company said on Tuesday.
The mission, designated FLTA0006, lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 9:37 a.m. EST, a day after an earlier attempt was called off due to unresolved ground support equipment issues.
The flight was carrying a Lockheed Martin LM 400 technology demonstration satellite — a critical test of the company’s next-generation, software-defined spacecraft platform designed for a variety of defense and commercial missions.
The mission marked the first launch under a broader agreement between Firefly Aerospace and Lockheed Martin, which includes up to 25 missions over the next five years.
Orbit off the mark
While liftoff and initial ascent appeared normal, trouble emerged roughly 2 minutes and 35 seconds into flight during stage separation.
Footage from the launch showed a sudden cloud forming between the first and second stages, followed by what appeared to be debris scattering as the upper stage pushed onward.
Onboard cameras later revealed further debris shedding and apparent damage to the Lightning engine’s nozzle — which seemed to be either heavily compromised or missing altogether.
“Following a nominal liftoff of Firefly’s Alpha rocket, there was a mishap during first stage separation for the FLTA006 mission that impacted the Stage 2 Lightning engine nozzle, putting the vehicle in a lower than planned orbit,” Firefly said in a statement
“We are working with our Lockheed Martin customer, the Space Force, and FAA to conduct a thorough investigation and determine the root cause,” it added.
Tech test turns turbulent
The satellite, self-funded by Lockheed Martin, has seen several delays leading up to liftoff. Although both the rocket and satellite were ready by mid-March, Firefly postponed the launch, citing limited range availability at Vandenberg Space Force Base.
This marked the sixth flight of Firefly’s Alpha rocket, which has had a mixed track record. Only two of its missions — the third (Victus Nox in September 2023) and the fifth (a NASA-sponsored cubesat launch in July 2024) — were widely deemed fully successful.
The rocket’s maiden flight in September 2021 ended in failure when Alpha lost control shortly after launch.
While the second flight in October 2022 did reach orbit, its payloads were inserted into lower-than-intended orbits and quickly reentered the atmosphere. Despite this, Firefly classified it as a success.
The fourth Alpha launch, in December 2023, also fell short when a Lockheed Martin satellite was left in an elliptical transfer orbit with a low perigee. A later investigation attributed that issue to a software glitch that prevented the upper stage from completing a required second burn.
LM 400is part of Lockheed’s “Message in a Booster” mission — a strategic move under its “show more, tell less” approach to unveiling next-gen capabilities for government and civilian clients.
The payload is a mid-sized, multi-mission satellite bus capable of supporting payloads up to 1,100 kilograms (2,425 pounds) and operating across a range of orbits — including low Earth orbit (LEO), medium Earth orbit (MEO), and geostationary orbit (GEO).
As per the company, the LM 400 is “particularly well-suited for proliferated constellations, whether that be military, civilian or commercial customer needs.”
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Space Ping.......................
“Hello, SpaceX?”
CC
Firefly has an interesting history.
SpaceX can bring back a Falcon 9 first stage every time but they throw away a second stage with each launch. For small sub 2000kg payloads this put it out of the price range of individual small sats. Entirely due to the cost of losing the second stage. They offer ride share with 100+ payloads but you have to be going to an orbit a lot of other people are going too or take a OTV kick stage like a Sherpa with you and use it to transfer to your own orbit.
SpaceX could fit out a second stage with the hardware to recover it. Elon has said they would in the past use inflatable heat shields and try to catch it like they were catching fairings using guided parafoils and a net on a boat or helicopter mid air grab like the Air Force used to do with film capsules. Problem is for every Kg of mass you use for recover that is one Kg less of payload. That said with drone ship booster recover they have 18,500Kg to LEO taking 5000Kg a very comfortable margin for just a inflatable heat shield which also serves as your hypersonic and supersonic drag device, plus a parafoil with GPS guidance flying to either a as Elon put it “bouncy castle” recover or just snag the parafoil directly with a hook in flight from above like the Air Force did for years and years during the cold war. This still leaves 13,500Kg of payload multiple times what a small sat like this would need but the economics become how much is fuel ,how much referb costs to fly both stages and what are the recovery ops cost for the drone ship and helo or bouncy castle boat. That still would be less than throwing away a whole rocket just to put 1600Kg to LEO. SpaceX said they were only going to focus on Starship development so it’s a what if in an alternative timeline.
I wonder how many rocket carcasses are littering the bottom of the Atlantic east of Florida and west of Africa?..............
There are thousands of discarded stages llittering the seabed, when you have sweet sweet uncle sugar money you can throw away stuff for profits.
The Falcon second stage is one of humans most impressive engineering feats. It has by far the best mass ratio of any rocket stage ever made even the Saturn V earth departure stage doesn’t touch it. It’s 3.2 meters wide and 3,500kg empty but holds 100,000+Kg of fuel/O2 and 22,000+ Kg of payload when fully expended. Even reusable it yeets 18,500Kg to LEO.
These guys have some impressive tech. Certainly less than 4,000Kg worth of ballute or encapsulated ballom drag device could safely bring down a F9 stage 2 again it’s only 3.2 meters wide and under 4 tonnes they plan to land 9 tonnes on Mars with much lower atmospheric density...4 tonnes is baby weight in a dense atmo like terra. The idea is you increase drag so much so high you slow down where the air is thin and heating is spread out and low enough you don’t need heat shield mass once slowed to low hypersonic speeds then you dig deeper where stage mass and existing thermal blankets needed for the ride up already have the rating to take the drag heat. The drag device then slows you all the way through transonic and to terminal velocity in double digit km per hour. Pop a GPS flown parafoil and guide your way to either a soft landing on skids, a net or inflatable bag landing or go old skool and midair help capture it again it’s only 4 tonnes a medium lift helo can grab that. Skidding on Teflon coated skis is your least mass choice that doesn’t need ground or aerial infrastructure a parafoil is going to give you a 20 mph or less forward velocity and single meter per second decent rates perfect for a White Sands lake bed landing zone of for SpaceX West Texas or the Gulf of America coastal sand strands. SpaceX could probably kerbal it together in a few months if they had the will to do so. 4,000kg off 18,500 is still a respectable 14,500 to orbit and now you have the cheapest space system humans have come up with. No more yeeting $6 million second stages to Davy Jones in the Pacific.
https://www.gaerospace.com/aerodecelerators/dual-use-lifting-ballute/
https://www.gaerospace.com/aerodecelerators/enveloping-aerodynamic-decelerator-ead-technology/
Design Heatproof parachutes..................
BINGO!
Close enough...
If it’s not SpaceX I’m X-iting. Yeah, that’ll catch on.
That is exactly what a ballute is, a hypersonic heat resistant balloon parachute...aka ballute. All previous attempts at hypersonic ring parachutes have failed. However inflatable heat shields, inflatable drag devices and ballutes have been successful.
If SpaceX wanted too they could make the second stage recovery a option for low earth orbit missions by sacrificing some payload it would open the lower end of the market for them and crush every other small sat launcher since they would only need to pay for fuel and recovery ops plus referb. Recently they flew a F9 first stage nine days after it landed , think about that they landed a booster and 9 days later it was launched again that includes referb, second stage and payload integration plus preflight testing all in 9 days.
Falcon Heavy can put 28,000+ Kg into LEO recovering all three boosters so much mass even a hit of 4,000kg is 24,000Kg plenty for a disposable kick stage for GTO or GEO missions in the ten tonne class. The other choice is go to GTO with the second stage like normal take the payload hit of 4T and keep just enough residual fuel mass to lower perigee down to sub 200Km then use a lifting drag device just like the ones from the group above to pull you down into LEO it’s identical to aerocapture ops once low enough you start entry decent and landing using the same drag ballute targeting the Florida Atlantic coast, there is a nice long runway where the shuttle used to land...You only need a few hundred feet of it for the skids under the parafoil guided stage 2 halt it.
Ballute? I remember that movie, Jane Fonda played a prostitute......Cat Ballute...........
Cat Ballou with Lee Marvin.
During a “prove we can do it” shot.....takes me way back to Bill Gates on TV showing how well Windows worked, when, on live TV, he got the Blue Screen of Death....
Yes, a funny movie...............
Yeah, I feel bad for Firefly, so close, yet so far.
I think there was yet another Starlink launch yesterday, not sure, it popped up on the Roku YouTube as I lay awake this morning, waiting to hit my six hour mark on the cpap.
It looks like SpaceX is so far ahead of all the others, Virgin Galactic, Firefly, Blue Origin, Boeing, et al , they will never catch up.................
Next time use SpaceX ...
Indeed and 70% cheaper.
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