Posted: Sat, Oct 8, 2022, 12:34 PM ET (1634 GMT)
Firefly Aerospace's Alpha rocket reached orbit for the first time early Oct. 1. The rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 3:01 am EDT (0701 GMT) and deployed several small satellites into a retrograde orbit. The company claimed "100% mission success" on this launch, the second for the Alpha rocket. The launch came nearly 13 months after the first Alpha launch, which suffered an engine shutdown shortly after liftoff. On Friday, the U.S. Space Force announced it selected Firefly to launch its Victus Nox space domain awareness mission. The satellite will be built by Millennium Space Systems and will launch next year as a tactically responsive space demonstration.

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