Firefly Aerospace’s second orbital launch try must wait for an additional day.
The corporate deliberate to ship its Alpha rocket to orbit on a take a look at flight early Friday morning (Sept. 30) from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base, and it ticked off plenty of packing containers alongside the way in which — together with engine ignition.
Alpha’s first-stage Reaver engines lit up at 3:51 a.m. EDT (0751 GMT; 12:51 a.m. native California time), however they shut down nearly instantly, and the 95-foot-tall (29 meters) rocket remained standing on the pad, apparently in good situation. It wasn’t instantly clear what triggered the launch abort.
“The car went into auto abort after ignition. That is designed into the system to make sure security. The workforce scrubbed tonight’s launch try and is reviewing knowledge to find out our subsequent launch window,” Firefly tweeted this morning (opens in new tab).
Video: Watch Firefly Aerospace use a rocket engine to light birthday candles
Firefly calls the mission it aimed to launch in the present day “Alpha Flight 2: To The Black.” As that identify suggests, it is going to be the second orbital try for Alpha; the primary attempt, in September 2021, ended in failure after one of many Reavers shut down prematurely not lengthy after liftoff.
Although “To The Black” is a take a look at flight, Alpha is not carrying a dummy payload; it should try to deploy a handful of small satellites into low Earth orbit on the mission. You may learn extra about them in our launch preview story from earlier this month.
Firefly initially tried to launch “To The Black” on Sept. 11 however scrubbed that try after noticing an sudden drop in helium strain within the leadup to liftoff. Unfavorable climate forecasts then pushed the attempt to in the present day.
Firefly goals to safe a sizeable portion of the small-satellite launch market with Alpha. The rocket can haul 2,580 kilos (1,170 kilograms) of payload to low Earth orbit on every launch, in response to Firefly’s Alpha user’s guide (opens in new tab). The corporate expenses $15 million per mission.
Mike Wall is the writer of “Out There (opens in new tab)” (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a e-book in regards to the seek for alien life. Comply with him on Twitter @michaeldwall (opens in new tab). Comply with us on Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) or on Facebook (opens in new tab).
