KYIV. Sept 3 (Interfax) - Firefly Aerospace Inc., a U.S. developer of orbital launch vehicles owned by Ukrainian businessman Max Polyakov, managed to successfully lift its first Alpha rocket from a launch pad, but the mission was interrupted due to an anomaly observed during the flight, the company's press service said on Twitter.
According to a livestream of the rocket's launch on YouTube, the launch window opened on September 3 between 4:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. Kyiv Time. The rocket lifted off from the Pacific coast, from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, at 4:58 a.m. Kyiv Time.
The rocket blasted off successfully, but the mission was interrupted a couple of minutes after liftoff due to as of yet unclear circumstances. The company has promised to give further details of the incident later.
The first mission was named Dedicated Research and Education Accelerator (DREAM) or FLTA001.
Firefly Aerospace, formerly known as Firefly Space Systems, is a private U.S. company, which was founded in Texas in 2014 and specializes in developing new-generation light launch vehicles. In Ukraine's Dnipro, Firefly Aerospace has its own research and development center and a workshop for the experimental production of small rocket units with subsequent laboratory testing.