Firefly Alpha returns to flight

WASHINGTON — Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket successfully returned to flight March 11, launching a technology demonstration mission more than 10 months after the rocket’s previous launch failed.

Alpha lifted off at 8:50 p.m. Eastern from Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The company had scrubbed launch attempts of the “Stairway to Seven” mission the previous two days because of minor technical issues.

The vehicle’s two stages performed as planned, including a later relight of the second-stage engine. The company did not disclose the planned or actual orbit achieved by the vehicle, but the webcast showed the rocket had reached an altitude of about 245 kilometers at the time the second-stage engine shut down as scheduled about eight minutes after liftoff.

The rocket was carrying what the company described as a “demonstrator payload” for Lockheed Martin but did not provide additional details.

Firefly called the launch a complete success. “Alpha Flight 7 was flawlessly executed with all mission requirements completed, further proving the resiliency, innovation and passion of the Firefly team,” Jason Kim, chief executive of Firefly, said in a post-launch statement.

The launch was the first for Alpha since a failure on an April 2025 mission carrying a Lockheed Martin technology demonstration satellite. The upper stage failed to reach orbit after an energetic event during stage separation ripped away the nozzle of the stage’s engine, reducing its performance.

Firefly announced in August that it traced the failure to structural failure of the first stage caused by higher-than-expected aeroheating of the stage during ascent, linked to a different flight profile for the mission compared with previous flights. The stage suffered structural failure just after stage separation, creating a shock wave that tore off the upper stage’s engine nozzle.

The company said in September it was working toward a return to flight of the rocket in the “coming weeks,” but the first stage for that mission was destroyed in an explosion on a company test stand in Texas in late September.

The explosion, Firefly announced in November, was caused by contamination in a fluid line in the stage that triggered a “combustion event” in one of its four engines. The company said it made process improvements to “enhance our reliability and quality culture.”

“Over the last several months, we took a hard look at our processes across engineering, production, test, integration and operations and invested the time required to make a series of improvements to ensure a higher level of quality and reliability in every Alpha we deliver and launch,” Kim said.

Of the six previous Alpha launches, only two placed their payloads into their planned orbits. Two failed to reach orbit, and two others suffered problems that resulted in their payloads being placed into orbits lower than planned.

This was the last flight of the current configuration of Alpha. Firefly announced in January an upgrade called Block 2 that stretches the first and second stages and includes a new avionics and battery system as well as improved thermal protection systems.

Firefly said it tested some of the upgrades on Flight 7, such as the avionics and thermal protection system, to gain flight heritage for the Block 2 version.

“Flight 7 served as a critical opportunity to validate Alpha’s performance ahead of our Block 2 upgrade, and this team knocked it out of the park,” Adam Oakes, vice president of launch at Firefly Aerospace, said in the post-launch statement. “We have full confidence in our Alpha rocket, and we’re committed to continuous improvement as we roll out Block 2.”