{"id":178621,"date":"2025-10-04T07:47:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T07:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/178621\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T07:47:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T07:47:11","slug":"firefly-rocket-explodes-during-ground-testing-north-of-austin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/178621\/","title":{"rendered":"Firefly rocket explodes during ground testing north of Austin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Firefly Aerospace Inc.<\/a> suffered another setback Monday when a rocket it was preparing for launch exploded in a massive fireball during ground testing at its facility north of Austin.<\/p>\n

Firefly stock plummeted on the news<\/a>, which raised questions about the fast-growing company\u2019s ability to execute.<\/p>\n

The loss will further set back the company\u2019s Alpha program, which has had problems on four of its six flights \u2014 including two explosions and twice putting satellites in the wrong orbit.<\/p>\n

On its last mission in late April, the satellite-launching rocket exploded before reaching orbit.<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s explosion occurred as Firefly was testing an Alpha booster stage at its Rocket Ranch near Briggs, the facility where it builds and tests rockets and engines.<\/p>\n

\u201cProper safety protocols were followed, and all personnel are safe,\u201d Firefly said in a statement. \u201cThe company is assessing the impact to its stage test stand, and no other facilities were impacted.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Cedar Park-based company had been preparing the rocket for launch later this year from\u00a0Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. It was scheduled to carry a Lockheed Martin payload to orbit.<\/p>\n

Several people posted videos of the incident showing two blasts and a plume of black smoke rising from the facility.<\/p>\n

In April\u2019s failed mission, the 97-foot-tall rocket lifted off from\u00a0Vandenberg but had trouble a few minutes into its flight. The booster exploded<\/a> after stage separation, damaging the upper stage. The blast knocked off parts of the upper-stage engine nozzle, Firefly said, \u201csubstantially reducing the engine\u2019s thrust.\u201d The upper stage didn\u2019t make it to orbit and crashed along with its payload in the ocean north of Antarctica.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The rocket was grounded for investigation of what went wrong, but in late August Firefly received clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration to resume launches.<\/p>\n

The Alpha rocket has had other problems in its development. During its maiden launch in September 2021<\/a>, a first-stage engine shut down early, leading to initiation of the craft\u2019s automated self-destruct system.\u00a0<\/p>\n

During Alpha\u2019s second flight in October 2022, it deployed its satellites into a lower orbit than planned, which caused them to reenter the atmosphere earlier than scheduled. And in December 2023<\/a>, on its fourth flight, Alpha again put a satellite in the wrong orbit, but that craft was able to complete its mission.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s explosion comes less than two months after the firm rocketed in its initial public offering of stock on Nasdaq. Firefly shares have struggled to maintain altitude since the August IPO, though, and\u00a0fell sharply after Monday\u2019s testing explosion.<\/p>\n

Firefly shares fell sharply in after-hours trading Monday and continued to nosedive Tuesday. They were down nearly 21% Tuesday to close at $29.32, down 35% from the\u00a0initial public offering price of $45\u00a0\u2014 and a decline of 65% from the company\u2019s first-day closing\u00a0price.<\/p>\n

Beyond rockets, Firefly makes space tugs and lunar landers. Earlier this year, it became the first company to pull off a completely successful touchdown on the moon with its Blue Ghost lander.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Firefly Aerospace Inc. suffered another setback Monday when a rocket it was preparing for launch exploded in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[79384,90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-178621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-austinlatest","9":"tag-science","10":"tag-space","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}