Firefly - Alpha Rocket 3rd
It is expected that at 01:18 Beijing time on December 21, 2023, the Firefly-Alpha launch vehicle carrying the new phased array broadband satellite will be launched from the SLC-2W station at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, carrying out the second launch of the rocket this year.
The mission payload is the new Electronically Steerable Antenna (ESA) wideband, based on Terran Orbital's Nebula platform, equipped with a new electronically scanned phased array antenna developed by Lockheed Martin.
Firefly - Alpha Rocket 3rd
Firefly Alpha is a two-stage small liquid launch vehicle developed by Firefly, and the first and second stages are powered by liquid oxygen kerosene propellant. The arrow is 29.48 meters long, the diameter of the first and second stages is 1.8 meters, equipped with a fairing with a diameter of 2 meters, the take-off mass is 54.12 tons, the take-off thrust is about 81.73 tons, its altitude of 200 kilometers, the inclination angle of 28.5 degrees of low-earth orbit capacity of 1.17 tons, the load factor of 2.16%, the altitude of 300 kilometers of low-earth orbit capacity of 1.03 tons, the load factor of 1.90%, the altitude of 500 kilometers of sun-synchronous orbit capacity of 0.745 tons, the load factor of 1.38%.
Although the Firefly-Alpha rocket is small, it has a high carrying efficiency. The arrow uses a lightweight engine and a lightweight rocket body, and its first and second dry weights are only 2.895 tons and 0.909 tons respectively, and the dry mass of the whole arrow is 3.804 tons, and the structural coefficient is 7.03%, which constitutes a strong basis for the "Alpha" rocket to have a high carrying efficiency.
Prior to this mission, the Firefly-Alpha rocket had performed a total of 3 launches, the first flight failed, the second launch was partially successful, and the third launch was successful. At present, the "special car" price of "Alpha" is 15 million US dollars, which is converted to 12,800 US dollars / kg according to the low earth orbit mission, and in the increasingly fierce market competition environment, the arrow needs to show advantages in performance speed and customized services.
Author: Mulan Xingzhou