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Firefly Aerospace is aiming to launch its second rocket from Vandenberg on Sunday after their first launch exploded. The Firefly Alpha Rocket is scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base's Space Launch Complex 2-West in a 3:00 - 7:00 p.m. launch window. Just over a year ago, the rocket's first launch ended in an explosion about 2 minutes and 30 seconds after launching, sending debris into the backyards of residential homes as far as Orcutt. There were no reported injuries. The private rocket company stated the rocket had experienced an anomaly during the first stage ascent. Alpha Flight 2:...

This week Firefly Aerospace signed a deal with Northrop Grumman to replace the first stage of the Antares rocket with the first stage of Firefly Beta, this will eliminate the dependence on Russian engines and bring the manufacturing of the major structural parts into the US.Firefly Will Replace Russian Engines On Antares Rocket With Beta Booster | August 11, 2022 | Scott Manley

As we all know on July 20, Blue Origin successfully made a flight to the edge of orbit, making Jeff Bezos one of the first two billionaires to go to space. This seems to be the resounding success of Blue Origin so far. However, after the billionaire space founder came back to Earth, the company's internal affairs became chaotic, many key engineers and leaders decided to leave the company.At least 17 key leaders and senior engineers have left Blue Origin this summer, with many moving on in the weeks after Bezos’ spaceflight.Two of the engineers, Nitin Arora and Lauren Lyons,...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Feb. 22 (UPI) -- Firefly Aerospace announced Friday it will open a rocket-manufacturing facility on Florida's Space Coast on Cape Canaveral, adding momentum to a new commercial space race. Firefly Aerospace will join SpaceX, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, satellite manufacturer OneWeb and a cluster of smaller companies that have kicked off a new chapter in American space exploration. Gov. Ron Desantis made the official announcement Friday morning at Cape Canaveral, with a small crowd seated atop the launch platform the company will refurbish. "It's good for the economy. It's also good for space exploration," DeSantis said. "I...

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine announced Thursday that nine U.S. companies will compete to deliver experiments to the lunar surface. The space agency will buy the service and let private industry work out the details on getting there, he said. The goal is to get small science and technology experiments to the surface of the moon as soon as possible. The first flight could be next year; 2019 marks the 50th anniversary of the first manned moon landing.

The general idea is that these companies will be able to compete for contracts to deliver NASA science experiments to the surface of the moon by flying lunar landers on rocket launches purchased from other commercial space companies. Those individual contracts would substitute for NASA needing to build those capacities itself. But under this approach, NASA won't be alone in hiring these companies — the agency hopes to spur development that the commercial sector can also utilize. "We want to be first customers, not only customers," Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's head of the science mission directorate, said during the event. The...