Uploaded April 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
On April 29th Firefly launched their alpha rocket with a payload for Lockheed Martin, but something appeared to go wrong during stage separation and the nozzle extension from the second stage was lost. This reduced the engine performance to the point that it was unable to reach orbit.. Let's look at what we have and see if we can figure out what happened.
Addendum, I'm pretty sure there's no piston pusher system on Firefly's alpha, since we see the nozzle vectoring inside the interstage on flight 2, so maybe they just blow gas inside the interstage to push the stages apart like a cork being blown out of a bottle?
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On April 29th Firefly launched their alpha rocket with a payload for Lockheed Martin, but something appeared to go wrong during stage separation and the nozzle extension from the second stage was lost. This reduced the engine performance to the point that it was unable to reach orbit.. Let's look at what we have and see if we can figure out what happened.
Addendum, I'm pretty sure there's no piston pusher system on Firefly's alpha, since we see the nozzle vectoring inside the interstage on flight 2, so maybe they just blow gas inside the interstage to push the stages apart like a cork being blown out of a bottle?
Follow me on Twitter for more updates:
twitter.com/DJSnM
I have a discord server where I regularly turn up:
discord.gg/zStmKbM
If you really like what I do you can support me directly through Patreon
patreon.com/scottmanley
