Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

On Saturday, local time, the Alpha rocket of Firefly Space Company (Firefly Aerospace), a private US space company, was successfully launched for the first time in its second attempt, sending three payloads including NASA into orbit.

Earlier on Saturday, the Alpha rocket was launched from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, successfully sending three small payloads into Earth orbit. Firefly Space made its first launch attempt in September 2021, but the rocket veered off course and exploded shortly after takeoff.

The three payloads are all very small, each about the size of bread. These include Serenity from the non-profit organization Teachers in Space. Firefly Space said in its mission description that Serenity was designed to collect data that would be shared with the educational community.

Also in orbit is TechEdSat-15 (TES-15), which is co-owned by NASA and California's San Jose State University. The TES-15 has an "external brake" function, which is designed to help the satellite leave orbit more smoothly after completing its work. Firefly Space said: "the external brake will be deployed after the microsatellite is ejected from the distributor to get the satellite out of orbit." TES-15 has also conducted an experiment aimed at optimizing microsatellite data transmission, the company added.

The third payload is the PicoBus deployer from the non-profit organization Libre Space, which carries five smaller microsatellites. These small satellites include Genesis-L and Genesis-N from the Spanish radio satellite company AMSAT. According to Firefly Space, the two satellites will demonstrate a pulsed plasma thruster system for spacecraft propulsion and "pave the way for future missions."

PicoBus also carries Libre Space's Qubik-1 and Qubik-2, which will conduct communication experiments. The fifth satellite, from FossaSat-1B of the Spanish company Fossa Systems, will test communications and remote sensing technology.

Before the launch, Firefly Space, based in Cedar Park, Texas, went through years of engineering, litigation and financial difficulties. As part of the NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Service (CLPS) program, the company is one of several companies selected by NASA to deliver scientific payloads to the moon.

The Alpha rocket is designed to send about 2200 pounds (1000 kilograms) of cargo into low-Earth orbit and nearly 1400 pounds (635 kilograms) into a 500km-high sun-synchronous orbit. That leaves it filling the gap between large rockets from Elon Musk's SpaceX and United launch Alliance (ULA) and smaller rockets made by several industry players, including Virgin Orbital and Rocket Lab USA.

Firefly Space says it plans to launch Alpha rockets twice a month for commercial customers at a cost of $15 million per flight. The company cancelled an earlier launch attempt on Sunday because of a drop in helium pressure.

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