Alpha's track record
The booster destroyed on Monday to fly during the seventh launch of Firefly's Alpha Rocket, a replaceable, two -stage launch vehicle that was able to place a load of just over 2,200 pounds or a metric barrel in a track with a low earth.
This upcoming launch was supposed to be the return of the Alpha Rocket to the flight after a failure during the flight in April, when the engine of the upper stage was eliminated before the rocket could reach a job and implement his satellite payload.
But engineers followed the cause of the failure to the first phase, which Milliseconds tore after the separation of the stage, thereby broadcasting an explosion wave that damaged the engine of the upper stage. Researchers concluded that the most likely cause of the breaking was thermal damage due to a phenomenon known as a flour induced by Pluim. This happens when a rocket plume protrudes at larger heights, creating conditions that in some cases can pull the hot exhaust plume further to the vehicle.
The Alpha Rocket flew a higher perspective of the launch of April than with earlier missions, which exposed a side of the rocket to more heating of the recirculated motor exhaust plume. At stage separation, the thermal damage led to the structural failure of the booster. Firefly said it would add a thicker thermal protection barrier to the booster for future missions and reduce the perspective during the most important flight phases.
Firefly announced last month that the Federal Aviation Administration received the approval to resume the Lances of Alpha.
The rocket already had a mixed record on the way to this year. Firefly has only achieved two fully successful missions in six launches of the Alpha Rocket. Two missions put their payloads in off-target jobs, and two Alpha-Lanceringen-the debut of the Rocket in 2021 and the flight in April counts completely to reach a job.
