Source (All Images) | Firefly Aerospace

Firefly Aerospace (Cedar Park, Texas, U.S.) has announced a Block II configuration upgrade for its Alpha rocket with a focus on enhancing reliability, streamlining producibility and improving launch operations to further support commercial, civil and national security mission demand.

Firefly’s upcoming Alpha Flight 7, targeted to launch in the coming weeks, will be the last flown in the current configuration and will serve as a test flight with multiple Block II subsystems in shadow mode to gain flight heritage and validate lessons learned ahead of the full Block II upgrade on Alpha Flight 8.

“The Block II upgrade has been part of Firefly’s strategic growth plan to meet the evolving needs of the growing global launch market and further supports Firefly’s culture of continuous improvement with a focus on enhanced safety, quality and reliability,” says Jason Kim, CEO of Firefly Aerospace. “Firefly worked closely with customers and incorporated data and lessons learned from our first six Alpha launches and hundreds of hardware tests to make upgrades that increase reliability and manufacturability with consolidated parts, key configuration updates and stronger structures built with automated machinery.”

In addition to improving reliability and production rate, Block II is designed to expand Alpha’s deployable launch capabilities for critical responsive space missions, such as hypersonic testing, national security missions including Golden Dome and commercial satellite launches for domestic and international customers.

The planned Block II upgrades set to launch on Alpha Flight 8 include the following:

Increased length and structural strength. Increasing Alpha’s length from approximately 97 feet to 104 feet with optimizations for rapid manufacturing on Firefly’s AFP machine and increased strength of all carbon fiber composite structures.

Consolidated in-house batteries and avionics. Replacing off-the-shelf batteries and avionics with a consolidated system built in-house and used across Firefly’s spacecraft and rockets for increased schedule, reliability and production efficiencies.

Optimized propellant tanks. Improving thermal protection system for added reliability and optimizing the liquid oxygen and RP-1 tank configurations to increase stage burn time.

Some of these upgrades, including the in-house avionics and thermal improvements, will be tested on Alpha Flight 7. The first stage of the vehicle was recently delivered to Firefly’s launch site at the Vandenberg Space Force base, and the Firefly team is now conducting final integration with the second stage and payload faring ahead of the static fire and launch.

“In addition to supporting customer objectives, Firefly is using Flight 7 as an opportunity to test key systems ahead of the full Block II upgrade on Flight 8,” says Adam Oakes, VP of launch at Firefly Aerospace. “This approach allows us to accelerate our planned Block II timeline and validate the improvements designed to enable more mass savings, optimize production and increase reliability across the entire Alpha vehicle. Our flight-proven Reaver and Lightning engines and carbon fiber composite structures, continue to be the backbone of this rocket, so that core technology doesn’t change.”