Firefly's alpha rocket launches in second attempt

Firefly Aerospace Inc. launched its first rocket into orbit, advancing the private space startup's bid to become a reliable partner for NASA.

The Alpha rocket took off from Vandenberg Space

Force Base in California early Saturday and successfully put three small payloads into Earth orbit, including one for the U.S. space agency. A previous launch attempt failed in September2021 when the debut Alpha rocket veered off course and had to be exploded shortly after takeoff.

The launch follows years of engineering work, litigation and financial struggles for Cedar Park, Texas-based Firefly, one of several companies NASA selected to deliver science payloads to the moon as part of the agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program.

Alpha is designed to carry about 2,200pounds of cargo to low-earth orbit and nearly 1,400 pounds to a 500-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit. That puts it in the market between the large rockets of Elon Musk's SpaceX and United Launch Alliance, and the smallerpayload rockets built by several industry players, including Virgin Orbit and Rocket Lab USA Inc.

Firefly has said it plans to launch Alpha twice monthly for commercial customers, charging $15 million per flight. The company scrubbed an earlier launch attempt on Sunday due to a drop in helium pressure.

Until recently, Firefly was partly owned by Ukrainian tech entrepreneur Max Polyakov. In November, the U.S. government requested that Polyakov sell his stake in the company due to national security concerns. Polyakov agreed and sold his stake in Firefly in February to AE Industrial Partners.