First Rocket of Space Company Firefly Exploded During Its Launch

NBC News reports:Space company Firefly launched its inaugural Alpha rocket on a cloudless Thursday evening over the California coast. The Alpha rocket took off from Vandenberg Space Force Base's SLC-2 complex, climbing west over the Pacific. But about two and a half minutes after launch, Firefly's rocket began flipping end over end and exploded in the air. The Vandenberg's Space Launch Delta 30 unit confirmed that it triggered the Alpha rocket's flight termination system, causing the explosion. "A team of investigators will convene to determine the cause of the failure," Space Launch Delta 30 said... A Firefly statement emphasized that its Alpha test flight achieved "a number of" mission objectives, including: booster ignition, liftoff and supersonic speed, and collected "a substantial amount of flight data."

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