Firefly Aerospace’s first rocket launch ended with an air explosion on Thursday night, and a dramatic video of the event was posted on social media.
At 9:59 pm EST, the unmanned Alpha rocket was successfully launched from the Vandenberg Space Force base in California.
The mission seemed to proceed smoothly, until two minutes after the flight, the rocket began to roll. After a few seconds, it exploded into a huge fireball.
The video below was taken from the town of Okter, a few miles from the launch site, and shows how the rocket emits smoke before it suddenly deviates from its flight path. The explosion occurred a few seconds later.
Another live video was shot in Nebomo, about 20 miles from the launch site.
Firefly issued a statement in the early hours of Friday morning, confirming that the rocket had experienced an “abnormal”.
The company stated that it is too early to draw conclusions about the cause of the rocket explosion, adding that engineers are combing ground and flight data to determine what happened.
Firefly added that despite the explosion, many mission objectives were achieved, including successful first-stage ignition, lift-off, and supersonic development. The company said no one was injured by the explosion.
Firefly was founded in 2014, and Alpha is its The first rocket was designed to launch.
Alpha aims to enter the emerging market for small satellites and allow customers to put their equipment into earth orbit. According to Firefly, the price of each launch is around $15 million.
Alpha can launch 1,000 kilograms or 2,200 pounds into low-Earth orbit. It can also launch heavy objects up to 1,388 pounds into high-altitude orbit.
The 95-foot-tall rocket was powered by four rocket boosters in its first phase. Another rocket powers the second stage. Unfortunately, for Firefly, the Rockets did not show the second phase on Thursday.
This is far from the first time a commercial rocket company has messed up a flight.
Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technology Corporation When the company sent its debut Falcon 1 rocket into space, it failed not only once, but also three times, so it almost collapsed in the early days.
Until September 2008 Space Exploration Technology Corporation Eventually it became the first company to privately develop a rocket that successfully entered orbit. This was the fourth attempt.
SpaceX still occasionally Blow up the prototypeThis year, the company carried out several iterations of its Starship rocket, and finally landed successfully in the fifth attempt of its SN15 prototype.
Ellen 11/Getty
