Watch the launch of your Alpha rocket for the first time

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The space company Firefly aims to launch its Alpha rocket for the first time Thursday evening, leaving the base of the Vandenberg space force in California.

With a height of 95 feet, the Firefly Alpha rocket is designed to launch up to 1,000 kilograms of payload into low Earth orbit, at a cost of $ 15 million per launch. This places Firefly in the “medium elevation” rocket category, pitting it against several other companies, such as Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit, ABL Space, and Relativity Space.

The first Alpha mission, called DREAM (or mission dedicated to the accelerator of research and education) and launched from the SLC-2 in Vandenberg, is a test flight and carries several items, with 11 technical payloads. Technical loads include: a Teachers in Space cube satellite (which is testing a Villanova blockchain experiment), Purdue University FireSail, the small satellite of the Hawaii Museum of Science and Technology , six FOSSA picosatellites, a Benchmark Space Systems demonstration spacecraft and Thruster Systems’ Propulsion Space Demonstration spacecraft.

Firefly, valued at more than $ 1 billion, has raised more than $ 175 million to date. The company is best known for its launch business, with Alpha and the beta planned. But it also works on a lunar lander called Blue Ghost and a spacecraft (also known as a “space tug”) to transport satellites into unique orbits after a launch.

The company planned to launch its first Alpha rocket in December, but CEO Tom Markusic told CNBC earlier this year that Firefly “had some trouble preparing for the launch site” at the base of the force. airstrip from Vandenberg, California, and also had a major delay from a rocket flight completion system provider: a key piece needed for rocket launch. Markusic worked on Elon Musk ‘SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Branson’s Virgin Galactic before Firefly.