Firefly Aerospace suffered a failure during the first orbital flight of their small satellite launch vehicle, Alpha. The launch, designated as FLTA001, launched from Space Launch Complex 2 West at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California before blowing up during first stage flight.
Firefly was aiming to become the fifth company to develop and fly a privately-funded rocket to orbit, following Orbital ATK’s Pegasus (since acquired by Northrop Grumman), SpaceX’s Falcon 1, Rocket Lab’s Electron, and Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne.