Firefly Aerospace, an American aerospace company, successfully launched its Alpha rocket on July 4th, placing eight cubesats into orbit. The mission was funded by NASA and marked the first flight of the Alpha rocket since an upper stage malfunction occurred over six months ago.

The launch took place from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 12:04 a.m. Eastern time. It followed a scrubbed launch attempt on July 2 due to a ground equipment issue that halted the countdown just before the rocket's first stage engines ignited.

Approximately 35 minutes after the upper stage shutdown, the Alpha rocket began deploying its payload of eight cubesats. This deployment process was expected to last about 11 minutes, according to the provided timeline by Firefly. While Firefly did not disclose the specific target orbit for the mission, the orbit was described as a low Earth orbit.

After the expected deployment, Firefly Aerospace posted on social media, stating that NASA's CubeSat teams were now awaiting acquisition of signal. However, neither NASA nor the payload owners provided any comments on the status of the cubesats in the initial hours following the launch. The launch webcast did confirm the successful deployment of seven out of the eight cubesats.

The NASA-sponsored cubesats carried on this mission were part of the Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa 43) program. They included four satellites developed by universities: CatSat from the University of Arizona, KUbeSat-1 from the University of Kansas, MESAT-1 from the University of Maine, and SOC-I from the University of Washington. Additional satellites were provided by NASA's Johnson Space Center and Ames Research Center, as well as a nonprofit group called Teachers In Space.

Firefly Aerospace was awarded the launch contract by NASA through its Venture Class Launch Services (VCLS) Demo 2 program, which supports new small launch vehicles. The company won the contract in 2020 alongside Astra Space and Relativity Space. However, Astra's launch in February 2022 failed to reach orbit due to an upper stage malfunction, and Relativity Space retired its rocket after a single unsuccessful launch in April 2023.

This successful launch of the Alpha rocket marked its fifth overall mission and the first since a December 2023 launch that encountered a software problem, resulting in a payload being stranded in a low orbit. Firefly stated that during this mission, they were able to complete a second stage relight and a "nominal plane change" after the cubesats were deployed.

Firefly Aerospace has not announced a specific date for their next launch, but prior to this mission, they expressed plans to conduct up to four Alpha launches this year and as many as six in 2025. The customer for the next launch is expected to be Lockheed Martin, which recently signed a contract with Firefly for at least 15 and up to 25 Alpha launches through 2029.