Firefly Aerospace suffered a sharp fall in its share price after the first stage of its Alpha rocket was destroyed in a ground test.
The impact of the explosion, and ensuing fire, on 29 September was felt beyond the company’s launch pad: It led to a dramatic 21% fall in the company’s share price the following day.
Firefly Aerospace had only recently completed its Initial Public Offering (IPO) in August at US$45 a share. The stock price rose by over 50% on its first day but steadily fell. Just before the failure the company’s stock price was $37. It plummeted further afterwards, to US$29 – significantly below its initial IPO price.
Still from CCTV camera imagery of the Firefly first stage test fire. Courtesy: Firefly
The fire on the Alpha rocket’s first stage was initially caused by an engine explosion. There was a secondary explosion shortly after that caused unspecified damage to the test stand in Texas. The first stage, which had been due to return to service later this year on a launch from Vandenberg, California, was also destroyed.
A previous failure
Firefly Alpha suffered a separate launch failure earlier this year in April when it lost a Lockheed Martin LM 400 bus test satellite. That in-flight failure resulted from damage to the upper stage engine due to first stage explosion immediately after separation. The explosion was triggered by aerothermodynamic heating due to a rocket plume interaction with the stage’s boundary layer airflow causing it to separate. A higher than usual angle-of-attack is thought to be the underlying cause. In order to prevent this failure mechanism from reoccurring, thermal protection on the first stage has been increased and the rocket’s angle-of-attack will be limited.
No human injuries resulted from the explosion. “Proper safety protocols were followed, and all personnel are safe,” noted Firefly in a statement.
A full investigation into the on-stand fire and explosion is underway. While its launch vehicle’s reliability is open to question – it has failed or partially failed on four out of six launch attempts, Firefly has also had some notable successes. After all, it did successfully land its commercial Blue Ghost lunar lander on the Moon in March.
