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Firefly is going to find additional launch sites for conquering low-inclination orbits.
Image credit: satnews.com Max Polyakov’s Firefly Aerospace, a developer of small launch vehicles, received permission to launch its Alpha and Beta launch vehicles on one of the U.S. pads at Vandenberg. According to a U.S. Air Force “Statement of Support”, Firefly takes over Vandenberg, a California’s Air Force Base, after the final launch of the Delta 2 that will take place this year.
Firefly launch operations director Brad Obrocto, gave an interview to SpaceNews and told them that the infrastructure of the pad will remain almost the same with little adaptation for Alpha launches. It will allow them to start new Vandenberg launches as soon as possible. The transition will be provided with the help of partners from NASA and USAF. The most notable changes that Max Polyakov’s Firefly is going to make have to do with the launch pedestal. It will roll the vehicle out horizontally, and then raise the vehicle vertical for launch. The interface of the launching site will also be changed a little.
In addition, read latest news about Max Polyakov and new EOS Platform.
Image credit: aviationweek.com
As a matter of fact, the process of adapt the government launch pad to a commercial one is less costly and less time-consuming than the development of a new launch pad from scratch. The difference takes years off the time to first launch. Max Polyakov and Firefly believe that preparations will not take too much time, and in the third quarter of 2019, it is planning to commit the first Alpha launch. The company plans to schedule the launches monthly by the end of the next year after the first start.
There are some competitive advantages of Max Polyakov’s Firefly engine. It can take 630 kilograms of payload to a sun-synchronous 500-kilometer orbit and about 1,000 kilograms of the payload can be taken to a low-inclination orbit. In comparison to other launch vehicles in this class, the performance of Alpha is significantly better. According to Tom Markusic, CEO of Firefly, Alpha is made as a competitor to India’s Satellite PSLV, which is quite popular on the space market of small satellite launches. The key advantages over the competitors of Alpha are cost and convenience.
Moreover, Max Polyakov’s Firefly hasn’t stopped with Alpha. A second vehicle is being developed now, and it is called Beta. Beta is in many points similar to Alpha, but it has 2 first-stage booster cores. It is designed to place 4,000 kilos into low Earth orbit and 400 kilos into geostationary orbit. Besides site SLC-2W, Firefly is looking for one more site for low-inclination orbits.