Author Topic: Firefly ‘back in full force’ following last year’s near-death experience  (Read 814 times)

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Space News by Jeff Foust — August 6, 2018

Two years ago, Firefly Space Systems appeared to be flying high. The Texas company had more than 150 employees and was making progress on a small launch vehicle called Alpha. The company was one of three that won NASA contracts for smallsat launches, with plans to carry out that launch in early 2018.

Then the bottom fell out of the company. In late September 2016 the company announced it was furloughing its entire staff, citing financial problems when an unnamed investor backed out. The company limped along using loans until last spring, when Noosphere Ventures, a fund that was one of Firefly’s creditors, acquired the company’s assets in an auction. With new ownership, but some of the same management, the new Firefly Aerospace quietly started operations.

Firefly isn’t quiet any more, though. The company is actively developing a new version of its Alpha launch vehicle slated to make a first launch next fall from California and actively marketing that vehicle, with strong financial backing from its new owners.

“Firefly is back in full force,” Tom Markusic, chief executive of Firefly, said in a recent interview. “We’re not a company that’s struggling to get back on its feet.”
Building Alpha

That “full force” has include extensive development work of a new, larger version of the Alpha launch vehicle. “We’re transitioning right now into that full vehicle integration stage,” he said, with testing of the vehicle’s upper stage set to begin soon. Alpha is a two-stage vehicle with a lower stage powered by four of the company’s Reaver engines, each producing more than 40,000 pounds-force of thrust. The upper stage has a single Lightning engine, also developed at Firefly, with about 15,000 pounds-force of thrust.

The Lightning engine has been fully tested, Markusic said, allowing the company to move ahead with testing of the complete second stage. “There’s a lot of commonality between the first and second stage, with the exception of the engine,” he said. “So, we’ll learn a lot just getting the full second stage going in the coming months.”

Markusic said he anticipates going into qualification testing of the second stage near the end of the year. Those tests will involve full duration tests of the stage and then “exploring of corners of the box” of the stage’s performance. “After you’ve done that, you’re ready to start producing flight hardware.”

Around the time the second stage goes into qualification testing, the first stage should be ready for its initial tests. Work is still continuing on its Reaver engines, in particular its turbopump assembly, and he estimated that testing of the turbopump should begin in October.

Other aspects of Alpha, including its avionics, software and structures, are going well and in some cases ahead of schedule. Markusic said the company was on track for a first launch in September 2019.

Firefly has selected a launch site for its initial missions. In May, the company announced an agreement with the U.S. Air Force to take over Space Launch Complex 2 West (SLC-2W), a launch pad currently used by United Launch Alliance’s Delta 2. That pad will become available to Firefly after the venerable Delta 2 performs its final launch there in mid-September.

More: https://spacenews.com/firefly-back-in-full-force-following-last-years-near-death-experience/