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87-570: Firefly Aerospace is an American private aerospace firm based in Cedar Park, Texas , that develops small and medium launch vehicles for commercial launches to orbit . The company completed its $ 75 million Series A investment round in May 2021, which was led by DADA Holdings. The current company was formed when the assets of the former company Firefly Space Systems were acquired by EOS Launcher in March 2017, which
174-464: A partial success occurs when a spacecraft lands intact on the Moon but its in-situ operations is compromised as a result of the landing process for any reason. Landing on any Solar System body comes with challenges unique to that body. The Moon has relatively high gravity compared to that of asteroids or comets—and some other planetary satellites —and no significant atmosphere. Practically, this means that
261-881: A startup in January 2014 by Tom Markusic, P.J. King and Michael Blum and a small group of entrepreneurs who self-funded the company. The company was named in honor of the cult hit television show Firefly . In November 2014, Firefly moved its headquarters from Hawthorne, California to Austin -suburb Cedar Park, Texas . It grew to 43 employees by November 2014, and purchased 215 acres (87 ha) of land for an engine test and manufacturing facility in Briggs, Texas , 50 miles (80 km) north of Austin. In 2014, Firefly purchased fiber-winding equipment for manufacturing composite cryotanks that would be built using an out-of-autoclave process. Prototype tanks were tested at Marshall Space Flight Center of NASA in mid-2014. The Firefly Alpha design
348-746: A Ukrainian-built first stage with the Russian-built RD-181 engine and production ceased after the Russian invasion of Ukraine . Firefly will also assemble the entire first stage for the Antares 330. Like Firefly's previous engine's the Miranda will use RP-1 and LOX in a combustion tap-off cycle. It is expected to produce 1,023 kilonewtons (230,000 lb f ) of thrust and a specific impulse of 305 seconds (2.99 km/s) in vacuum. Development began in 2022 and in 2024 Firefly reported substantial progress on testing
435-537: A brief hop off the lunar surface. The Apollo Lunar Module was the lunar lander for the United States' Apollo program . As of 2024, it is the only crewed lunar lander. The Apollo program completed six successful lunar soft-landings from 1969 until 1972; a seventh lunar landing attempt by the Apollo program was aborted when Apollo 13 's service module suffered explosive venting from its oxygen tanks. The LK lunar module
522-586: A follow-up robotic lander named Beresheet 2 . India's Chandrayaan Programme conducted an unsuccessful robotic lunar soft-landing attempt on 6 September 2019 as part of its Chandrayaan-2 spacecraft with the lander crashing on the Moon's surface. On 23 August 2023, the program's follow-up Chandrayaan-3 lander achieved India's first robotic soft-landing and later conducted a brief hop on 3 September 2023 to test technologies required for Indian lunar sample return mission called Chandrayaan-4 . Japan's ispace (not to be confused with China's i-Space ) attempted
609-492: A launch site at Cape Canaveral . They have leased a private launch pad in Florida — the former Space Launch Complex 20 (SLC-20) which had been used by the U.S. Air Force in the 1950s through 1996 — from the U.S. government and they also have a similar lease arrangement on the U.S. West Coast . In December 2019, a group of primary shareholders of Firefly Space Systems filed a lawsuit alleging fraud and intentional bankruptcy of
696-506: A lunar soft-landing by its Hakuto-R Mission 1 robotic lander on 25 April 2023. The attempt was unsuccessful and the lander crashed into the lunar surface. The company has plans for another landing attempt in 2024. Russia's Luna-Glob program, the successor program to the Soviet Union's Luna program , launched the Luna 25 lunar lander on 10 August 2023; the probe's intended destination was near
783-650: A major European investor backed down, leaving Firefly without sufficient money to proceed. The company furloughed its entire staff in October 2016. According to Markusic, the investor's drawback was not related to the litigation but to Brexit . Within the same month, Virgin Orbit filed suit in Los Angeles County Superior Court against Firefly and two of its officers. By December 1, 2016, Firefly Space Systems had permanently ceased engineering work. In March 2017, it
870-401: A much stricter range of between −40 and 50 °C (−40 and 122 °F), and human comfort requires a range of 20 to 24 °C (68 to 75 °F). This means that the lander must cool and heat its instruments or crew compartment. The length of the lunar night makes it difficult to use solar electric power to heat the instruments, and nuclear heaters are often used. Achieving a soft landing
957-546: A new national security mission responsive-launch record. The previous responsive-launch record was 21 days in June 2021. Firefly's fourth launch on December 22, 2023 was also partially successful, with the second stage failing to perform its circularization burn, leaving its payload in an elliptical orbit instead. Firefly previously pursued a medium-lift launch vehicle design known as Firefly Beta , which consisted of three Alpha cores strapped together. In October 2019, Firefly announced
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#17328770541151044-420: A partnership to offer customers a combined package of satellite and launch services. In November 2018, it was announced that NASA selected Firefly Aerospace as one of nine companies able to bid for Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS), where the company would propose a robotic lunar lander called Firefly Genesis . In February 2019, the company announced that it would develop manufacturing facilities and
1131-457: A partnership with Aerojet Rocketdyne to develop a single core rocket potentially powered by Rocketdyne's AR1 engine . In 2020, the Beta was redesigned to be a scaled up Alpha. The first stage would be 3.7 m (12 ft) in diameter with 5 Reaver 2 engines capable of delivering 8000 kg to LEO or 5800 kg to SSO inside a 4.7 m (15 ft) fairing. In October 2021, the first Beta launch
1218-424: A similar method. Airbag methods are not typical. For example, NASA's Surveyor 1 probe, launched around the same time as Luna 9, did not use an airbag for final touchdown. Instead, after it arrested its velocity at an altitude of 3.4m it simply fell to the lunar surface. To accommodate the fall the spacecraft was equipped with crushable components that would soften the blow and keep the payload safe. More recently,
1305-940: A specific impulse of 328 seconds (3.22 km/s) in vacuum. It is relightable for missions requiring multiple upper stage burns. Firefly is developing Elytra, a lineup of orbital transfer vehicles designed to move payloads and satellites from one orbit to another within LEO, GEO, and cislunar space. Elytra would allow smaller rockets (such as Firefly's own Alpha) to deliver larger payloads to more difficult orbits, and enable satellite relocation, servicing, mission extension, and deorbiting. It comes in 3 versions: Elytra Dawn (the smallest, intended for LEO operations), Elytra Dusk (intended for LEO-to-geostationary transfers), and Elytra Dark (the most capable, intended for long-duration transfers to cislunar space and beyond). Elytra Dark will propel Blue Ghost Mission 2 to lunar orbit and serve as an orbiter, as well as deploy ESA's Lunar Pathfinder payload. Elytra
1392-873: A wide array of live entertainment events. George Strait opened the Cedar Park Center as the first event at the Center on September 25, 2009. The H-E-B Center is also home of the Texas Stars , the AHL affiliate of the Dallas Stars , and the Austin Spurs , the G-league affiliate of the San Antonio Spurs . The center is located at the corner of New Hope Drive and 183A Toll Road . Lunar lander A lunar lander or Moon lander
1479-548: Is a spacecraft designed to land on the surface of the Moon . As of 2024, the Apollo Lunar Module is the only lunar lander to have ever been used in human spaceflight, completing six lunar landings from 1969 to 1972 during the United States' Apollo Program . Several robotic landers have reached the surface, and some have returned samples to Earth. The design requirements for these landers depend on factors imposed by
1566-475: Is an expendable rocket engine designed for use on Firefly's Alpha rocket. It produces 184 kilonewtons (41,000 lb f ) of thrust and a specific impulse of 295.6 seconds (2.899 km/s). It is powered by RP-1 and liquid oxygen as its fuel and oxidizer, respectively. Reaver is fixed-throttle, meaning it runs at full power from ignition to first stage shutdown (eschewing the typical throttle-down performed by many vehicles at Max-Q to reduce aerodynamic loads) and
1653-636: Is designed to compete with vehicles like Rocket Lab 's Electron, ISRO 's PSLV , ABL SS 's RS1 , and Northrop Grumman 's Pegasus . It uses four Reaver engines on its first stage and one Lightning engine on its second, with a lightweight carbon composite structure to reduce dry mass, resulting in an improved payload fraction. Alpha performed its first partially successful orbital launch on October 1, 2022, after an unsuccessful first attempt on September 3, 2021. The first fully successful launch of Alpha took place on September 15, 2023. Firefly launched this mission 27 hours after receiving notice to launch, setting
1740-667: Is generally bisected north to south by U.S. Route 183 . A bypass route, the 183A toll road , also runs through Cedar Park and opened to traffic on March 15, 2007. Major east–west routes include RM-1431/Whitestone Boulevard and Cypress Creek/Brushy Creek Road. Cedar Park was incorporated in 1973 with a council–manager system of local government. As of the election on May 6, 2017, Cedar Park City Council members are as follows: The seven members serve two year terms. The mayor and council members place two, place four and place six are elected in even years. Council members place one, place three and place five are elected in odd years. Cedar Park
1827-454: Is ignited with the pyrophoric combination TEA - TEB (also used on the SpaceX Merlin and Rocketdyne F-1 ). It utilizes a pintle-type injector. In 2021, The Verge reported that Astra Space had purchased up to 50 modified Reaver engines and a technology transfer to license-build their own version of Reaver in-house for their Rocket 4 vehicle. Astra refers to this engine as Chiron. It
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#17328770541151914-482: Is in contrast to a small asteroid, in which "landing" is more often called "docking" and is a matter of rendezvous and matching velocity more than slowing a rapid descent. Since rocketry is used for descent and landing, the Moon's gravity necessitates the use of more fuel than is needed for asteroid landing. Indeed, one of the central design constraints for the Apollo program's Moon landing was mass (as more mass requires more fuel to land) required to land and take off from
2001-486: Is largely the same as Reaver, but Firefly implemented a two-axis hydraulic gimbal and a modified startup sequence to meet Astra's demands, as part of Firefly's space propulsion program. Lightning is a vacuum-optimized engine designed for use on the upper stage of Firefly's Alpha rocket. Lightning produces 70.1 kilonewtons (15,800 lb f ) of thrust and a specific impulse of 322 seconds (3.16 km/s). Like Reaver, Lightning uses RP-1 and LOX as its propellants as well as
2088-496: Is named after a firefly's wings and was previously known as SUV (Space Utility Vehicle). Firefly headquarters and factory are located in Cedar Park, Texas . The company has access to about 50,000 ft of manufacturing facilities for building composite and metallic components in-house. Firefly will use leased launch sites in California ( Vandenberg Space Launch Complex 2 ) and in Florida ( SLC-20 ). Firefly Space Systems began as
2175-468: Is named after the blue ghost firefly Phausis reticulata . In mid 2024, it was reported that Blue Ghost remains on track for a Q4 2024 launch. On June 9, 2019, Firefly Aerospace announced that it had signed an agreement with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), which owns the intellectual property of the Beresheet lunar lander design, to build a lunar lander named Genesis based on Beresheet . Genesis
2262-683: Is represented in Texas House of Representatives by Democrat John Bucy III . In the Texas State Senate , Cedar Park is represented by Republican Charles Schwertner . In the United States House of Representatives , Cedar Park is represented by Republican John Carter . Cedar Park is home to the Texas Stars of the American Hockey League and the Austin Spurs of the NBA G League . Both
2349-529: Is scheduled for the second half of 2026 from Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. MLV will initially be expendable but will eventually "incorporate first-stage reusability." In 2024, the company reported on social media that it was progressing and on track with Miranda engine testing for the MLV. In mid-2024, the company added that the MLV's first stage is being architected for return to launch site landings, and hope to have
2436-607: Is the only Texas high school to win UIL state titles in both band and football in the same year. Neighborhoods in the southern and easternmost areas of the city are wholly or partially served by the Round Rock Independent School District . Some of these neighborhoods or the Ranch at Brushy Creek, or Walsh Trails. Some elementary schools that serve these neighborhoods are Old Town, or Patsy Sommer. The middle school Walsh, and
2523-434: Is the only organization to develop an orbital-class rocket engine utilizing the combustion tap-off cycle , and the only organization to develop a tap-off cycle engine using RP-1 (highly refined kerosene) and liquid oxygen , also known as a kerolox engine. This engine type eliminates traditional gas generators and instead opts to "tap off" the main combustion chamber, utilizing the high heat and pressure within it to drive
2610-428: Is the overarching goal of any lunar lander, and distinguishes landers from impactors, which were the first type of spacecraft to reach the surface of the Moon. All lunar landers require rocket engines for descent. Orbital speed around the Moon can, depending on altitude, exceed 1500 m/s. Spacecraft on impact trajectories can have speeds well in excess of that. In the vacuum the only way to decelerate from that speed
2697-401: Is to use a rocket engine. The stages of landing can include: Lunar landings typically end with the engine shutting down when the lander is several feet above the lunar surface. The idea is that engine exhaust and lunar regolith can cause problems if they were to be kicked back from the surface to the spacecraft, and thus the engines cut off just before touchdown. Engineers must ensure that
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2784-527: The Alpha rocket on its second test flight “To the Black” from Space Launch Complex 2 from Vandenberg Space Force Base . Alpha completed all objectives (that Firefly had itself placed) for the mission, becoming the first orbital rocket to be powered by a tap-off cycle engine. The mission was the first partially successful orbital launch for Alpha, carrying educational payloads. Alpha deployed 7 satellites, however, due to
2871-508: The Antares rocket 's new 300-series' first stage, which is similar to Firefly's in-development MLV launch vehicle, and features the same composite structures as well as seven Miranda engines producing 7,200 kN (1,600,000 lbf) of thrust — substantially greater than the previous 200-series first stage. Northrop Grumman states that the new first stage substantially increases the mass capability of Antares . On October 1, 2022, Firefly launched
2958-544: The Lunokhod robotic lunar rover in 1970 and 1973. Luna achieved a total of seven successful soft-landings out of 27 landing attempts. The United States' Surveyor program first soft-landed Surveyor 1 on June 2, 1966, this initial success was followed by four additional successful soft-landings, the last occurring on January 10, 1968. The Surveyor program achieved a total of five successful soft landings out of seven landing attempts through January 10, 1968. Surveyor 6 even did
3045-663: The Rocketdyne J-2S and Blue Origin BE-3 , which are both hydrolox engines (fueled by liquid hydrogen ). Firefly designed both Reaver and Lightning in close cooperation with Firefly Aerospace Ukraine which had status of Ukrainian subsidiary of Firefly. Firefly Aerospace Ukraine hadn't any relations to other Ukrainian aerospace companies like Yuzhnoye and Yuzhmash. However Yuzhmash was involved in production of some engine components. There were plans to use Yuzhmash for mass production of Firefly engines but these plans were cancelled. Reaver
3132-721: The Texas Stars and the Austin Spurs play their home games at the H-E-B Center at Cedar Park . A public skate park facility opened in Cedar Park in July 2010. The 15,000-square-foot (1,400 m ) facility features a large bowl, mini bowl, and modern street course. Cedar Park is served primarily by the Leander Independent School District , and is home to the Cedar Park High School Timberwolves and
3219-604: The United States , the Soviet Union cancelled both the N1 Rocket and the LK Lunar Module programs without any further development. The Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (also known as the Chang'e project) includes robotic lander, rover, and sample-return components; the program realized an initial successful lunar soft-landing with the Chang'e 3 spacecraft on 14 December 2013. As of 2023,
3306-692: The Vista Ridge High School Rangers. Cedar Park won its first football state championship on December 21, 2012. The Timberwolves defeated Lancaster 17–7 at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, winning the Class 4A, Division II state title. In 2015, the Timberwolves won both state titles in Band and Football with the latter beating Frisco Lone Star for the Class 5a, Division II state championship. Cedar Park High school
3393-404: The payload , flight rate, propulsive requirements, and configuration constraints. Other important design factors include overall energy requirements, mission duration, the type of mission operations on the lunar surface, and life support system if crewed. The relatively high gravity (higher than all known asteroids, but lower than all Solar System planets) and lack of lunar atmosphere negates
3480-602: The 5th country to soft land on the moon. In January 2024, the first mission of the NASA-funded CLPS program, Peregrine Mission One , suffered a fuel leak several hours after launch, resulting in losing the ability to maintain attitude control and charge its battery, thereby preventing it from reaching lunar orbit and precluding a landing attempt. The probe subsequently burnt up in Earth's atmosphere. The second CLPS probe Odysseus landed successfully on 22 February 2024 on
3567-464: The CLEP has achieved three successful soft-landings out of three landing attempts, namely Chang'e 3 , Chang'e 4 and Chang'e 5 . Chang'e 4 made history by making humanity's first ever soft-landing on the far side of the moon. Israel's SpaceIL attempted a robotic lunar landing by its Beresheet lander on 4 April 2019; the attempt failed. As of 2023, SpaceIL has plans for another soft-landing attempt using
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3654-568: The Chinese Chang'e 3 lander used a similar technique, falling 4m after its engine shut down. Perhaps the most famous lunar landers, those of the Apollo Program , were robust enough to handle the drop once their contact probes detected that landing was imminent. The landing gear was designed to withstand landings with engine cut-out at up to 10 feet (3.0 m) of height, though it was intended for descent engine shutdown to commence when one of
3741-501: The City Council voted to rescind that particular design after "pushback on social media" from residents. As of September 2021, the city has no formal flag. As of the 2020 United States census , there were 77,595 people, 25,061 households, and 18,589 families residing in the city. According to the U.S. census, in 2010, there were 48,937 people living in the city, comprising 17,817 households and 12,926 families. The population density
3828-462: The Moon, marking the United States' first unmanned lunar soft-landing in over 50 years. This mission is the first private -NASA partnership to land on the Moon and the first landing using cryogenic propellants . However, the mission experienced some anomalies, including tipping-over on one side on the lunar surface; an off-nominal initial lunar orbit, a non-functioning landing LIDAR instrument, and apparently low communication bandwidth . Later it
3915-399: The Moon. The lunar thermal environment is influenced by the length of the lunar day. Temperatures can swing between approximately −250 to 120 °C (−418.0 to 248.0 °F) (lunar night to lunar day). These extremes occur for fourteen Earth days each, so thermal control systems must be designed to handle long periods of extreme cold or heat. Most spacecraft instruments must be kept within
4002-660: The Range terminated the flight using the explosive Flight Termination System (FTS). In late November 2021, Maxim Polyakov received a letter from the US Committee on Foreign Investment (CFIUS) asking Polyakov and his investment firm Noosphere Venture Partners to sell a stake in Firefly (nearly 50%) for national security reasons. Polyakov denied the threat to US national security, but agreed to comply. Noosphere Ventures has announced that it will hire an investment banking firm to sell. Even before
4089-509: The South pole-Aitken basin on the lunar far side at 22:23 UTC on 1 June 2024. After the completion of sample collection and the placement of the sample on the ascender by the probe's robotic drill and robotic arm, the ascender successfully took off from atop the lander portion of the probe at 23:38 UTC on 3 June 2024. The ascender docked with the Chang'e 6 service module (the orbiter) in lunar orbit at 06:48 UTC on 6 June 2024 and subsequently completed
4176-401: The age of 18 living with them and 13.5% of all households had an individual aged 65 years or older living with them. 21.4% of all households were made up of individuals. The average household size was 2.74 and the average family size was 3.22. The age distribution included 32.8% aged 0 to 19; 38.8% aged 20 to 44, 21.8% aged 45 to 64, and 6.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age
4263-415: The atmospheres of the bodies on which they landed to slow their descent using parachutes, reducing the amount of fuel they were required to carry. This in turn allowed larger payloads to be landed on these bodies for a given amount of fuel. For example, the 900-kg Curiosity rover was landed on Mars by a craft having a mass (at the time of Mars atmospheric entry) of 2400 kg, of which only 390 kg
4350-431: The community name to Cedar Park. In 1892, a "strolling park" of 0.5 acres (2,000 m ) was built near the train depot. Austinites would ride the train to Cedar Park for day trips to the park. Cedar Park changed little until the 1950s and 1960s when housing subdivisions began to be built, spurred by the growth of nearby Austin. On February 24, 1973, the citizens of Cedar Park voted to incorporate. The estimated population
4437-546: The company by Tom Markusic. According to the defendants, including Polyakov, the lawsuit was provocative and the plaintiffs' claims unfounded, three years after the updated Firefly Aerospace was a significant success. The lawsuit is pending. In February 2021, NASA awarded approximately US$ 93.3 million to Firefly Aerospace to develop exploration technologies for Artemis Commercial Moon Delivery in 2023. Firefly launched its first test flight on September 3, 2021. The Firefly Alpha rocket experienced an anomaly during ascent, and
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#17328770541154524-421: The engine multiple times as the rocket performs a return-to-launch-site maneuver for a propulsive landing . Vira (formerly known as "Miranda Vacuum," "Viranda," and "Lightning 2") is a vacuum-optimized version of Miranda designed for the upper stage of Firefly's MLV vehicle. Like the Miranda, the engine will be fueled by RP-1 and LOX. It is expected to produce 890 kilonewtons (200,000 lb f ) of thrust and
4611-417: The engine, with 20 test fires completed. As of June 2024, the Miranda engine had entered production. To support production of the Miranda engine, the MLV and the first-stage for the Antares 300, Firefly expanded its Briggs, Texas facility from 92,000 to 207,000 square feet (8,500 to 19,200 m). Firefly said that it has designed the Miranda from its inception for reusability . The company plans to restart
4698-487: The first major medical center in Cedar Park. In 2013, the US Census Bureau named Cedar Park the 4th fastest growing city in the United States, with a population of 57,957. On April 4, 2016, the city announced it was collecting submissions for designs for an official city flag. Residents had until April 30 to submit proposed designs. On December 9, 2016, Cedar Park unveiled the flag design that won. On August 8, 2019,
4785-539: The high school Round Rock also serve these areas. The city is home to the Cypress Creek campus of Austin Community College , which was significantly expanded in 2008 to accommodate the area's growing population. The Texas Psychological Association is located in the city. The H-E-B Center at Cedar Park (formerly known as Cedar Park Center) is a multi-purpose indoor arena that was completed in 2009 and hosts
4872-582: The lower than intended final deployment orbit, most of the satellites re-entered approximately a week after launch. On September 14, 2023, Firefly successfully launched the Alpha rocket on its first mission for the United States Department of Defense , placing a spacecraft for Millenium Space into orbit and demonstrating rapid response launch for the United States Armed Forces . In 2024, it
4959-462: The lunar south pole, but on 19 August 2023 the lander crashed on the Moon's surface. Japan's Smart Lander for Investigating Moon made a successful lunar landing with wrong attitude, bleak signal bandwidth and even after losing one of its engines during descent but within 100 m (330 ft) of its landing spot on 19 January 2024. It carried two small LEV rovers on board deployed sepqrately, just before SLIM's touchdown. It's landing made Japan
5046-431: The main aim of its mission. China launched Chang'e 6 from China's Hainan Island on 3 May 2024; this mission seeks to conduct the first lunar sample return from the far side of the Moon . This is China's second lunar sample return mission, the first was successfully completed by Chang'e 5 when it returned 1.731 kg of lunar near side material to the Earth on 16 December 2020. The Chang'e 6 lander successfully landed in
5133-536: The mid-19th century the community was known as Running Brushy, named after a spring that formed the headwaters of a creek of the same name. In 1873 George and Harriet Cluck, after having run cattle up the Chisholm Trail for many years, bought 329 acres (1.33 km ) of land that included the Running Brushy spring. Their ranch formed the core of the community that would one day become Cedar Park. Ten years later,
5220-469: The new management, and the revised Alpha vehicle design featured a pump-fed engine and removed the aerospike configuration. The reorganization initially delayed development by approximately a year, with the first launch expected, as of 2017, in 2019. Development of engines and structures resumed in 2017 and Firefly Aerospace performed multiple hot-fire tests of its Lightning-1 second stage engine on its existing horizontal test stand. A vertical stage test stand
5307-594: The only method of descent and landing that can provide sufficient thrust with current technology is based on chemical rockets . In addition, the Moon has a long solar day . Landers will be in direct sunlight for more than two weeks at a time, and then in complete darkness for another two weeks. This causes significant problems for thermal control. As of 2019, space probes have landed on all three bodies other than Earth that have solid surfaces and atmospheres thick enough to make aerobraking possible: Mars , Venus , and Saturn's moon Titan . These probes were able to leverage
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#17328770541155394-416: The pumps. This provides a slight increase in specific impulse and results in a dramatically simpler and lighter engine, in exchange for increased engineering complexity and requiring more exotic materials in order to handle the high heat and pressure. The startup sequence is also more challenging. As a result of these challenges, tap-off has been largely ignored, with the only other engines using it being
5481-519: The railroad came through. The Austin and Northwestern Railroad , which connected the state capitol with the cities of Burnet and Lampasas to the north, was finished in 1882 and passed through Running Brushy and the Cluck ranch. The community was at this point renamed Bruggerhoff, after a railroad company official. However, the name was generally disliked by locals, being both hard to spell and pronounce. In 1887, Emmett Cluck (son of George and Harriet) changed
5568-409: The same combustion tap-off cycle. It is also re-lightable for missions requiring multiple upper stage burns. It uses Firefly's patented "Crossfire" injector design. Miranda is a liquid-fueled rocket engine currently being developed to power the company’s MLV (Medium Launch Vehicle). The Miranda will also be used on the Antares 330 rocket developed by Northrop Grumman . The Antares previously used
5655-762: The start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine , the future of the Firefly R&;D center in Ukraine was uncertain; after the invasion started, the Dnipro factory was bombed and many of the Ukrainian engineers either joined the army or fled the country. Even after Noosphere and Polyakov sold their controlling stake in the company, the US government continued to push them to sell all their remaining shares, blocking Firefly from launching their second rocket and denying them launch licenses until Polyakov
5742-466: The table; they are added as their initial robotic and/or crewed landers are launched from Earth. The term landing attempt as used here includes any mission that was launched with the intent to land on the Moon, including all missions which failed to reach lunar orbit for any reason. A landing attempt by a spacecraft is classified as full success if it lands intact on the Moon and is situated in its designed orientation/attitude and fully functional, while
5829-469: The technology refined by flight 6 of the vehicle. Firefly is a subcontractor for the Northrop Grumman Antares series 300 , providing the first stage, which consists of a de-rated MLV first stage. The second stage is carried over from the previous Antares 230+ . Wallops LP-0A is being retrofitted to support the new, larger, more powerful first stage. In April 2024, the company announced testing
5916-541: The transfer of the sample container to the Earth rentry module at 07:24 UTC on the same day. The orbiter then left lunar orbit on 20 June 2024 with the returner, which landed in Inner Mongolia on 25 June 2024, completing China's lunar far side sample return mission. The following table details the success rates of past and on-going lunar soft-landing attempts by robotic and crewed lunar-landing programs. Landing programs which have not launched any probes are not included in
6003-533: The use of aerobraking , so a lander must use propulsion to decelerate and achieve a soft landing . The Luna program was a series of robotic impactors, flybys, orbiters, and landers flown by the Soviet Union between 1958 and 1976. Luna 9 was the first spacecraft to achieve a soft landing on the Moon on February 3, 1966, after 11 unsuccessful attempts. Three Luna Spacecraft returned lunar soil samples to Earth from 1972 to 1976. Two other Luna spacecraft soft-landed
6090-475: The vehicle is protected enough to ensure that the fall without thrust does not cause damage. The first soft lunar landing, performed by the Soviet Luna 9 probe, was achieved by first slowing the spacecraft to a suitable speed and altitude, then ejecting a payload containing the scientific experiments. The payload was stopped on the lunar surface using airbags, which provided cushioning as it fell. Luna 13 used
6177-460: Was 1,765. A library followed in 1978. On May 27, 1997, a strong and destructive F3 tornado struck the town. The tornado was one of 20 confirmed tornadoes that occurred during the 1997 Central Texas Tornado outbreak . It devastated the downtown area of the city, killing one person and nearly destroying the Albertson's grocery store. In December 2007, Cedar Park Regional Medical Center opened becoming
6264-541: Was 2,141.9 inhabitants per square mile (827.0/km ). There were 8,914 housing units at an average density of 525.3 per square mile (202.8/km ). The racial makeup of the city was 81.4% White , 4.3% African American , 0.5% Native American , 5.1% Asian , 0.1% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander , 5.10% from other races , and 3.4% from two or more races. 19% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race. There were 17,817 total households including 12,926 family households. 45.7% of all households had children under
6351-545: Was 33.4 years. The median income for a household in the city was $ 87,466. Cedar Park lies mostly in Williamson County, although a small amount extends into Travis County. According to the United States Census Bureau , the city has a total area of 25.6 sq mi (66 km ), of which 25.3 sq mi (66 km ) is land and .3 sq mi (0.78 km ) (0.88%) is water. Cedar Park
6438-642: Was 77,595, and in 2022 was estimated to be 77,642. Before the arrival of European settlers in the 19th century, the Cedar Park area was inhabited by Native American tribes including the Tonkawa , the Lipan Apache , and the Comanche . A paleo-American archaeological site (named the Wilson-Leonard site) was discovered in Cedar Park in 1983 that showed evidence of continual habitation of the area since circa 5000 BC . In
6525-617: Was announced that "virtually all" of the assets of Firefly would be sold at auction, organized by EOS Launcher, Inc., who had previously bought a US$ 1 million promissory note issued by Firefly to Space Florida and induced a foreclosure . After going bankrupt and being liquidated in March 2017, the company was re-created as Firefly Aerospace by Noosphere Ventures, who bought out the assets of former Firefly Space Systems. The owner of Noosphere Ventures, Max Polyakov , committed to fully fund Firefly through at least its first two launches. The plans for engine development were significantly altered by
6612-405: Was announced that Firefly would compete with the likes of Rocket Lab and SpaceX for small satellite launch contracts with the United States Department of Defense . Cedar Park, Texas Cedar Park is a city and a suburb of Austin in the state of Texas , approximately 16 miles (26 km) northwest of the center of Austin. According to the 2020 U.S. census , the city's population
6699-429: Was completely divested. The government did not give reasons beyond Polyakov was Ukrainian and Ukraine and Russia had once worked together on rockets. Despite Polyakov's anger, he agreed, and on February 24, 2022, it was announced that Polyakov and his company Noosphere would sell their stake in Firefly to AE Industrial Partners. In August 2022, Northrop Grumman announced that it had contracted Firefly Aerospace to build
6786-432: Was fuel. In comparison, the much lighter (292 kg) Surveyor 3 landed on the Moon in 1967 using nearly 700 kg of fuel. The lack of an atmosphere, however, removes the need for a Moon lander to have a heat shield and also allows aerodynamics to be disregarded when designing the craft. Although it has much less gravity than Earth, the Moon has sufficiently high gravity that descent must be slowed considerably. This
6873-542: Was nearing completion and stage testing was expected to begin in the second half of 2018. On May 17, 2018, Firefly Aerospace opened a Research and development (R&D) center in the city of Dnipro , Ukraine . The Firefly R&D center was announced to become, over time, a place of work for more than 150 employees, and is equipped with the largest 3D-printer in Ukraine, intended for industrial manufacturing of high-quality metal parts. On October 10, 2018, Firefly Aerospace and smallsat developer York Space Systems announced
6960-448: Was occurring on the Antares 300. Firefly Gamma was a concept of a winged rocket to launch small payloads into orbit. It would have been a two-stage-to-orbit partially reusable rocket , with its first stage landing horizontally on a runway. Blue Ghost is a class of lunar landers designed at Firefly's Cedar Park facility to meet the updated NASA requirements for a Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) lunar lander. The lander
7047-528: Was planned for the second half of 2024. Since its announcement in August 2022, the MLV design has undergone several revisions. Now known as the Medium Launch Vehicle , or MLV , the rocket is now 4.32 m (14.17 ft) in diameter with 7 Miranda engines on the first stage and 1 Vira engine on the second stage. It will be capable of delivering over 16,000 kg to LEO in a 5 m (16.4 ft) fairing. The first MLV launch
7134-545: Was planned to be as early as 2016. In December 2014, Tom Markusic's former employer Virgin Galactic alleged he had illegally provided Virgin intellectual property to the Alpha development team. Virgin also alleged that Markusic had "destroyed storage devices, disposed of computers, and reformatted hard drives to cover the tracks of his misappropriation of Virgin Galactic information". In August 2016, an independent arbitrator confirmed that Markusic had destroyed evidence. Thereafter,
7221-432: Was proposed for NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) to deliver payloads to the surface of the Moon. If selected, Firefly Genesis would have been launched on a Firefly Beta rocket, or a Falcon 9 rocket in late 2022. Due to changing CLPS specifications, Firefly determined that Genesis no longer fit NASA's requirements and started work on a new lunar lander design called Blue Ghost in 2021. To date, Firefly
7308-515: Was revealed in July 2014. Firefly's objective was to be cash-flow positive by 2018, based on anticipated small-satellite business. Firefly had signed an agreement with Space Florida to launch from the Florida "Space Coast" . Firefly performed its first hot-fire engine test of the "Firefly Rocket Engine Research 1" (FRE-R1) on September 10, 2015. The initial demonstration launch of the Firefly Alpha
7395-404: Was revealed that, though it landed successfully, one of the lander's legs broke upon landing and it tilted up on other side, 18° due to landing on a slope, but the lander survived and payloads are functioning as expected. EagleCam was not ejected prior to landing. It was later ejected on 28 February but was partially failure as it returned all types of data, except post IM-1 landing images that were
7482-532: Was the lunar lander developed by the Soviet Union as a part of several Soviet crewed lunar programs . Several LK lunar modules were flown without crew in low Earth orbit , but the LK lunar module never flew to the Moon, as the development of the N1 Rocket Launch Vehicle required for the lunar flight suffered setbacks (including several launch failures), and after the first human Moon landings were achieved by
7569-419: Was then renamed Firefly Aerospace . Firefly's stated purpose is to increase access to space, similar to other private spaceflight companies. The Alpha vehicle developed by Firefly Aerospace is an expendable launch vehicle capable of lifting 1,030 kg (2,270 lb) to low Earth orbit and 630 kg (1,390 lb) to Sun-synchronous orbit . Firefly's advertised launch price is US$ 15 million. Alpha
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