Firefly Space : Company and Development General Thread

[novak]

https://www.ga.com/general-atomics-awards-contract-to-firefly-aerospace-inc-to-launch-nasa-multi-angle-imager-for-aerosols-mission

SAN DIEGO, 18 FEB 2021 - General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) announced today that it has awarded a contract to Firefly Aerospace Inc. to launch a GA-EMS developed Orbital Test Bed (OTB) satellite carrying NASA’s Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols (MAIA) instrument. The launch vehicle delivering the satellite to space will be Firefly’s Alpha rocket and is scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in 2022.

[Fizrock]

Firefly is utilizing hardware from the Netherlands-based @isis_space  to deploy customer payloads on Alpha’s upcoming maiden flight. Multiple CubeSats by US institutions were integrated at our Vandenberg facilities with support from @isis_space  launch subsidiary, ISILAUNCH.

 
 
Anyone do a background check on these guys before signing contracts? 

[russianhalo117]

Firefly is utilizing hardware from the Netherlands-based @isis_space  to deploy customer payloads on Alpha’s upcoming maiden flight. Multiple CubeSats by US institutions were integrated at our Vandenberg facilities with support from @isis_space  launch subsidiary, ISILAUNCH.

 
 
Anyone do a background check on these guys before signing contracts? 

wasnt their fault that a terrorist organization took their branding and such.

[PM3]

Firefly now has built up some decent manifest for ~10 launches:

2021 ~Q2  Dream (~15-20 smallsats)
2021      ALS rideshare - determined 2nd flight
2021      ALS rideshare - determined 3rd flight
2021      Spaceflight rideshare, as of April 2020
2022      OTB-2 with NASA payload
2022      Satlantis EO satellites, as of Feb. 2020
tbd       Satlantis EO satellites
tbd       one or more additional Satlantis launches?
tbd       ALS rideshare
tbd       ALS rideshare

Known rideshare payloads: Carbonite-4, two NASA VCLS cubesats

This launch cadence of course is very optimistic. Realistically, I would expect one launch attempt in 2021 and one or two in 2022.

[trimeta]

Firefly now has built up some decent manifest for ~10 launches:

2021 ~Q2  Dream (~15-20 smallsats)
2021      ALS rideshare - determined 2nd flight
2021      ALS rideshare - determined 3rd flight
2021      Spaceflight rideshare, as of April 2020
2022      OTB-2 with NASA payload
2022      Satlantis EO satellites, as of Feb. 2020
tbd       Satlantis EO satellites
tbd       one or more additional Satlantis launches?
tbd       ALS rideshare
tbd       ALS rideshare

Known rideshare payloads: Carbonite-4, two NASA VCLS cubesats

This launch cadence of course is very optimistic. Realistically, I would expect one launch attempt in 2021 and one or two in 2022.

Don't forget Firefly's Launch Service Agreements with Spire Global, Geometric Space, and Exolaunch. The latter even claims to be "beginning in 2022." As you say, they've got a lot on their plate...

[ringsider]

Max Polyakov stepped in to provide about $200 million in funding. Markusic said about 10 percent of those funds remain, and the company is now seeking to raise $350 million.

What's the burn rate at this point been? That's not a lot left for about 250 people. Especially for potential failures in launch (may be holding off launch till new funding is secure?)

Super rough calculation says if they got that $200m at the start of 2018 then they've spent 90% of their funding in 3 years. So they have ~1/3 of a year to go before running out. It's unlikely many customers will have stumped up real money yet so they've just been living off that VC capital.
Of course the burn rate won't have been even, but if we assume the capex and the non-linear burn rate cancel each other out then I reckon they'll be getting a bit nervous unless they're very close to closing another round!

Something seems to have shifted at Firefly, Spidey senses are tingling...

They have only approx. $20m left? No wonder they are not launching, they need to refill the money tank before they can risk launching that vehicle. If it fails they won't be able to build #2.

$20m at the scale they are running is a very short runway, 180 employees at $100k a head in USA and 160 employees in Ukraine at maybe a quarter of that is still $22m a year in employee costs alone.

And it is likely most investors on the other side of the table are saying "go ahead, launch it and we'll see what you are worth after that". Very tricky dynamic.

Would not be surprised to see some cost reduction very soon unless they have that capital lined up, but from the way Markusic is talking about looking for different funding sources he doesn't sound like someone sitting on a ready-made funding deal, and a large investment like $350m doesn't happen overnight.

Also how to interpret what that means about Noosphere / Polyakov, if they seem to be stepping back from funding Firefly after $200m?

What have they burned through so far at Firefly 1 and 2 to build a 1 ton launcher? $250m? More? That does not bode well for the others seeking that same scale and looking for early stage money e.g.Rocket Factory Augsburg.

[klod]

and 160 employees in Ukraine at maybe a quarter of that is still $22m a year in employee costs alone.

You are overestimating, average salary of engineer is 4k at most. So $1-2m Ukrainian side.

[FutureSpaceTourist]

https://twitter.com/firefly_space/status/1365032176513937416

Firefly was happy to host our Western Range Space Force mission partners at SLC-2 for an overview of Firefly operations and look at our maiden Alpha vehicle. Firefly is grateful for the opportunity to partner with Vandenberg AFB and to operate out of the historic SLC-2 facility!

[trimeta]

Am I going crazy, or did Firefly revert their design for the Beta back to their "three Alpha cores" design? JEF_300's earlier post describes their change to a single core design, with five Reaver 2 engines, but I'm now seeing a three-core design, with 12 Reaver 1 engines (equivalent to three Alpha cores, which have four engines each). Oddly, in the bottom of the page they seem to suggest that this change has halved their rated payload capacity (to 4k kg to 200 km LEO, 3k kg to 500 km SSO), but the top of the page hasn't been so updated.

[Kryten]

Am I going crazy, or did Firefly revert their design for the Beta back to their "three Alpha cores" design? JEF_300's earlier post describes their change to a single core design, with five Reaver 2 engines, but I'm now seeing a three-core design, with 12 Reaver 1 engines (equivalent to three Alpha cores, which have four engines each). Oddly, in the bottom of the page they seem to suggest that this change has halved their rated payload capacity (to 4k kg to 200 km LEO, 3k kg to 500 km SSO), but the top of the page hasn't been so updated.

The link in your post leads to the single-stick reaver 2 design for me, I think you're seeing a cached version of the old page somehow.

[JEF_300]

Am I going crazy, or did Firefly revert their design for the Beta back to their "three Alpha cores" design? JEF_300's earlier post describes their change to a single core design, with five Reaver 2 engines, but I'm now seeing a three-core design, with 12 Reaver 1 engines (equivalent to three Alpha cores, which have four engines each). Oddly, in the bottom of the page they seem to suggest that this change has halved their rated payload capacity (to 4k kg to 200 km LEO, 3k kg to 500 km SSO), but the top of the page hasn't been so updated.

The link in your post leads to the single-stick reaver 2 design for me, I think you're seeing a cached version of the old page somehow.

Yeah, I still get the single stick from that link too.

[trimeta]

Hmm, I'm on mobile, and choosing "request desktop site" switches it back to single-stick. I guess I assumed (incorrectly) that they wouldn't fail to update the mobile site with a significant change of plans like this after a period of months. Shows how serious they are about the Beta...

[JEF_300]

Hmm, I'm on mobile, and choosing "request desktop site" switches it back to single-stick. I guess I assumed (incorrectly) that they wouldn't fail to update the mobile site with a significant change of plans like this after a period of months. Shows how serious they are about the Beta...

?
The engineers and managers aren't the ones updating the site; they have some sort of web/social team.

[trimeta]

Hmm, I'm on mobile, and choosing "request desktop site" switches it back to single-stick. I guess I assumed (incorrectly) that they wouldn't fail to update the mobile site with a significant change of plans like this after a period of months. Shows how serious they are about the Beta...

?
The engineers and managers aren't the ones updating the site; they have some sort of web/social team.

Having a web/social media team that far removed from the engineers doesn't make me think great things about them as a company. Especially for a company that's nominally going to launch any month now, and which hasn't been trying to be super-secretive (like Astra or ABL).

[JEF_300]

Hmm, I'm on mobile, and choosing "request desktop site" switches it back to single-stick. I guess I assumed (incorrectly) that they wouldn't fail to update the mobile site with a significant change of plans like this after a period of months. Shows how serious they are about the Beta...

?
The engineers and managers aren't the ones updating the site; they have some sort of web/social team.

Having a web/social media team that far removed from the engineers doesn't make me think great things about them as a company. Especially for a company that's nominally going to launch any month now, and which hasn't been trying to be super-secretive (like Astra or ABL).

You're entitled to your beliefs. But for me, that's way to far to try to read into the culture of a company based on only what is, honestly, a very unimportant problem (that being that the mobile site not being up to date).

[Alberto-Girardi]

Are they going to launch on 14th this month? Or there are delays?

[Mackilroy]

According to Space.com, Firefly has pushed their debut launch back to 2020: https://www.space.com/firefly-aerospace-alpha-rocket-first-launch-april-2020.html

[Skyrocket]

According to Space.com, Firefly has pushed their debut launch back to 2020: https://www.space.com/firefly-aerospace-alpha-rocket-first-launch-april-2020.html

So they have a time machine?

[Mackilroy]

Whoops, I should have looked at the year. I saw elsewhere April 2021, and only looked at the month on that article. UPI.com claims an April 2021 launch, I've never heard of the site before and don't know their sources: https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2021/02/26/Firefly-Aerospace-Alpha-rocket-NASA/5321614205867/

[PM3]

Firefly (as well as Virgin, Relativity and others) have been dropping nonsense launch schedules all the time. This information is all but worthless. As someone pointed out above: Firefly may want to solve their financial issues first before risking a launch. Also, they need to obtain an FAA license before they can launch.