Alpha explosion
Firefly Aerospace's Alpha rocket exploded when the range activated its flight termination system after the rocket started tumbling. The company says one engine shut down early in the flight, and the vehicle became unstable passing Mach 1.

Firefly Aerospace said Sept. 5 its first Alpha rocket failed when one of its first-stage engines shut down seconds after liftoff.

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Jeff Foust has more than a decade of experience writing about space policy, entrepreneurial ventures and regulatory affairs. In 2001, he established spacetoday.net to aggregate and summarize the day's space-related news stories. In 2003, he started The...