Updated for 2 a.m. EDT July 2: Firefly cancelled its planned launch today (July 2) due to a problem with ground support equipment. The next possible takeoff opportunity is scheduled for 00:03 EDT (0403 GMT) on July 3.
Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket will fly for the fifth time early Tuesday morning (July 2), and you can watch the action live.
The mission, which Firefly calls “Noise of Summer,” is scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 12:03 a.m. EDT (04:03 GMT; 9:03 p.m. July 1, California local time).
Firefly will host a webcast of the launch with NASASpaceflight.com, beginning 30 minutes before liftoff. Space.com will be streaming it here and on our homepage, courtesy of Firefly and NASASpaceflight.
“Noise of Summer” will send eight cubesats into low Earth orbit atop the 29-meter-tall Alpha probe. The small spacecraft were selected as part of NASA’s Cubesat Launch Initiative, which aims to pave the way to space for satellites developed by U.S. universities and nonprofits.
The eight cubesats that will be launched on “Noise of Summer” were developed by teams from the University of Arizona, the University of Kansas, the University of Maine, the University of Washington, a nonprofit organization called Teachers in Space and two NASA facilities: the Johnson Space Center in Houston and the Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley.
“Noise of Summer” is also designed to demonstrate Firefly’s ability to react quickly to a launch directive.
The company will conduct the mission “as another reactive space operation, which includes transporting the payload fairing to the launch pad and mating it to Firefly’s Alpha rocket within hours of scheduled liftoff, compared to weeks in a typical operation,” Firefly wrote in a mission description.
Firefly is no stranger to this kind of fast-track activity. In September 2023, for example, the company launched the “Victus Nox” mission for the U.S. Space Force just 27 hours after receiving the official order — the fastest turnaround time for a national security mission, the company said.
The Alpha rocket made its debut in September 2021, in a test flight that failed shortly after liftoff. The rocket’s second mission, in October 2022, was a partial success: it put seven satellites into orbit, but apparently deployed them too low.
The Alpha rocket successfully completed its third mission, the aforementioned “Victus Nox” mission. The fourth flight, launched on December 22, was more mixed. The rocket sent its payload, an electronically steerable antenna developed by aerospace giant Lockheed Martin, into low Earth orbit but did not reach the target orbit.
Still, Lockheed Martin was able to “successfully accomplish its primary mission objectives, including rapid satellite commissioning following insertion,” Firefly wrote in a mission update in February.
