There are several European launchers in operation or development—Arianespace’s Vega, Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum, and Rocket Factory Augsburg’s RFA One—with lift capacities comparable or slightly higher than Firefly’s Alpha.
File photo of a Firefly Alpha rocket lifting off in 2023. The launch on Tuesday occurred in foggy conditions.
Firefly argues that its Alpha rocket services a niche in the market for satellites too large to fly with Rocket Lab or too small to merit a dedicated flight with SpaceX. Firefly has some contract wins to bear this out. The launch on Tuesday was the first of up to 25 Alpha flights booked by Lockheed Martin to launch a series of tech demo satellites. The first of these was Lockheed Martin’s 3,836-pound (1,740-kilogram) LM-400 satellite, which was lost on Tuesday’s mission.
NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Reconnaissance Office, the US Space Force, and several more commercial customers have also reserved slots on Firefly’s launch schedule. With these contracts, Firefly has the fourth-largest launch confirmed backlog of any US launch company, following SpaceX, United Launch Alliance, and Rocket Lab.
While Firefly continues flying the Alpha rocket, its engineers are developing a larger Medium Launch Vehicle in partnership with Northrop Grumman. Last month, Firefly celebrated the most significant accomplishment in its 11-year history—the first fully successful landing on the Moon by a commercial entity.
But while Firefly’s first missions at its founding were to build rocket engines and launch small satellites, other markets may ultimately prove more lucrative.
Peter Beck, Rocket Lab’s founder and CEO, argues rockets like Firefly’s Alpha are in a “no man’s land” in the launch market. “It’s too small to be a useful rideshare mission, and it’s too big to be a useful dedicated rocket” for smallsats, Beck told Space News.
Firefly might have a good strategy to prove Beck wrong. But first, it needs a more reliable rocket.
