Oct 29, 2019
Mark Watt posted several photos of Friefly's Composite overwrapped pressure vessels, manufactured in-house, which depict the filament winding machine in action and final tanks integrated in an intertank.
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Oct 29, 2019
Firefly has recently completed the construction of a 25,000 feet integration facility in addition to the one in Briggs, soon to be busy with the integration of 3 rockets.
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Oct 28, 2019
Firefly attended the 70th International Astronautical Congress, held on 21-25 October, where the company presented its rocket launch vehicle, orbital transfer vehicle (OTV), designed to enable satellites launched on Alpha to go to higher orbits, and its design technology for landing a module on the Moon. Also, Thomas Markusic and Jim Maser, SVP of Aerojet Rocketdyne, commented on the recent partnership between their companies to help Firefly successfully complete Alpha and follow up with the Beta medium class LV using the AR1 enigne.
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Oct 22, 2019
Firefly was featured in an episode of Space: The Final Business Frontier series by Bloomberg. In the video, Mark Watt claims that the company plans to launch 5 times during 2020 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and that it has a backlog of $1.3 billion and a pipeline of $3.5 billion for its launch services. Thomas Markusic adds that Firefly expects to be cash-flow positive by the end of 2020. Also, according to Watt, they can offer the same price per kilogram as SpaceX - around $15,000, however, it will be a much more custom solution.
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Oct 18, 2019
Firefly is partnering with Aerojet Rocketdyne to increase the performance of its upcoming Alpha launch vehicle. It will feature 3D-printed components from Aerojet on its first-stage Reaver engines, namely the "head-end", which will increase the lift capacity by 27% to Sun Synchronous Orbit and 20-30% to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Also, Firefly is considering Aerojet’s AR1 engine - previously promoted as an option for United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket - for its future launch vehicle, Beta. According to Mark Watt, Beta has been redesigned from a triple-core rocket to single-core in order to increase payload capabilities to 8,000 kilograms to LEO. Aerojet plans to have a test-ready AR1 engine in the first half of 2020. Firefly is also considering in-space propulsion systems from Aerojet for its OTV. A demonstrator of the OTV can potentially be included in the upcoming launch in Q1 2020.
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Oct 10, 2019
Firefly became one of 8 companies that have been selected by the U.S. Air Force to compete for launch orders under the Orbital Services Program-4 - potentially worth $986 million over nine years. OSP-4 is designed to accommodate small and medium payloads greater than 400 lbs. The program is managed by the USAF Space and Missile Systems Center’s Launch Enterprise Small Launch and Targets Division at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. The contract was awarded to Firefly Black, LLC, the national security and civil space subsidiary of Firefly Aerospace, based in Washington D.C.
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Oct 8, 2019
EOS Data Analytics Inc. (EOS), a space portfolio company of Noosphere Ventures, announces that it will develop synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensors intended for deployment in a constellation of microsatellites. The project named EOS SAR has been in stealth mode for two years. A radar prototype has already been designed and the development of a low-cost high-performance SAR payload for small satellites with resolution down to 25 cm has begun.
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Oct 5, 2019
The Firefly test team successfully proofed the Stage 1 Liquid Oxygen tank. The mass of the Alpha Stage 1 tank structure is 0.91% of the total loaded mass, which is one of the best in the industry.
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