The Firefly team is kicking off 2020 with the Alpha first stage on the stand for qualification testing. Elizabeth Howell at zurl.co/Kcjm caught up with Firefly CEO Dr. Tom Markusic for a scoop on Firefly’s 2020 plans. zurl.co/awvj
C. G. Niederstrasser @RocketScient1stFirefly Aerospace delays first Alpha flight to April. It looks like it is still a toss up whether Virgin or Firefly will be first to field the next American small launcher.
Alpha has turned out to be a really good looking rocket.
Quote from: JEF_300 on 01/08/2020 12:52 amAlpha has turned out to be a really good looking rocket.Not really.They have turned out some nice pictures of a good looking rocket.We'll see what the real thing looks like in about 4 months. Hopefully the reality will match the graphics, but it wouldn't be the first time they have not.
That art of the Alpha launching from the space.com article is gorgeous.Alpha has turned out to be a really good looking rocket.
Not going to look like that at launch, will be white with ice, see real launches of Electron.
First =/= second stage. For the second stage theres a clear need to keep the LOX well-insulated for long duration coast (which Firefly apparently plans, but Rocket Lab ditched in favor of a more easily restarted third stage). For the first stage, performance losses to boiloff are negligible, that insulation would just be a waste of dry mass and labor.There were some older Alpha renders (in the aerospike era IIRC) even showing the second stage painted white for thermal control, while the booster remained black
The Firefly Fabrication and Construction Team has continued to expand and improve our 200-acre Briggs, Texas site. In 2019 we added Building 4 and Test Stands 3 and 4, in addition to major upgrades to TS1 and TS2. Firefly’s co-located Production and Test capability is unique in
the industry and creates efficiencies which allow Firefly to rapidly and economically develop spaceflight hardware.
Four Alpha (Flight 2) Reaver engines in production at our Briggs Site machine shop. Our CNC programming and machining team have developed methods to transform the outer profile of rough copper forgings into finished thrust chamber liners in just 18 minutes of machining time.
Join Dr. Will Coogan, Firefly’s Chief Engineer of Spacecraft, at Astronomy on Tap ATX for a discussion on our Genesis Lunar Lander and a chance to win some cool Firefly swag. January 21st at 7:30 at The North Door. zurl.co/sJ7w
Loading LOX. About to attempt first Alpha Stage 1 Qual hotfire.
People within a one-mile radius of Firefly were evacuated tonight and a fire was reported at Firefly facilities. Working to find out more.183, an Austin-area highway, was shut down near Briggs, TX, per local KXAN news.well, Firefly deleted the tweet, but they earlier said they were conducting a hotfire test.
[...]https://www.kxan.com/traffic/us-183-closed-in-briggs-area-due-to-non-law-enforcement-incident-bcso-says/
Burnet County Sheriff Calvin Boyd explained to KXAN on Wednesday night that there was a fire at the location.There were also reports of an explosion at the site, that BCSO received at 6:24 p.m., however the sheriff says there wasn’t an explosion.
Latest update, no explosion, just a small fire at the launch pad that was quickly extinguished.
CEDAR PARK, Texas, January 21, 2020 – Firefly Aerospace, Inc. (Firefly), a provider of economical and dependable launch vehicles, spacecraft and in-space services, announced today the execution of a Launch Services Agreement with Innovative Space Logistics BV (ISILAUNCH), a launch services subsidiary of Netherlands based ISIS – Innovative Solutions in Space B.V. (ISISPACE). Under the agreement, ISILAUNCH will offer to its customers multiple dedicated and rideshare launch opportunities on the Firefly’s Alpha launch vehicle, on missions beginning in 2020....
Firefly Aerospace maintains a 200-acre manufacturing and test facility in Briggs, Texas, 27 miles north of its headquarters.On January 22, 2020, test engineers were conducting a planned test of the first stage of the company’s “Alpha” launch vehicle. The test was to be the first in a series of propulsion tests to verify design and operation of the stage, and involved a short, 5-second firing of the stage’s four engines. At 6:23 pm local time, the stage’s engines were fired, and a fire broke out in the engine bay at the base of the rocket’s stage. The 5-second test was immediately aborted and the test facility’s fire suppression system extinguished the fire. The cause of the anomaly is under investigation. Firefly engineers are reviewing test data from the stage to identify potential causes for the test failure, and Firefly will share results of that investigation once it is complete.Firefly is committed to workplace safety, and at no time during the test were Firefly operations personnel or the public in danger. Firefly is coordinating closely with local authorities and emergency response personnel as it investigates the anomaly and refines its contingency procedures.
