Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket will fly for the fifth time ever early Tuesday morning (July 2), and you may watch the motion dwell.The mission, which Firefly calls “Noise of Summer season,” is scheduled to launch from California’s Vandenberg Area Power Base at 12:03 a.m. EDT (0403 GMT; 9:03 p.m. on July 1 native California time).Firefly will host a launch webcast with NASASpaceflight.com, starting half-hour earlier than liftoff. Area.com will carry it right here and on our dwelling web page, courtesy of Firefly and NASASpaceflight.”Noise of Summer season” will ship eight cubesats to low Earth orbit atop the 95-foot-tall (29-meter-tall) Alpha. The little spacecraft have been chosen through NASA’s Cubesat Launch Initiative, which goals to assist pave a path to area for satellites developed at U.S. faculties, universities and nonprofit organizations.The eight cubesats going up on “Noise of Summer season” have been developed by groups on the College of Arizona, the College of Kansas, the College of Maine, the College of Washington, a nonprofit referred to as Lecturers in Area, and two NASA amenities — Johnson Area Middle in Houston and Ames Analysis Middle in Silicon Valley.”Noise of Summer season” can also be designed to exhibit Firefly’s capacity to reply shortly to a launch directive. The corporate will conduct the mission “as one other responsive area operation, which incorporates transporting the payload fairing to the launch pad and mating it to Firefly’s Alpha rocket inside hours of the scheduled liftoff, in comparison with weeks in a typical operation,” Firefly wrote in a mission description.Breaking area information, the newest updates on rocket launches, skywatching occasions and extra!Firefly is practiced in such expedited exercise. In September 2023, for instance, the corporate launched the “Victus Nox” mission for the U.S. Area Power simply 27 hours after receiving the official order — the quickest such turnaround for any nationwide safety mission, in line with the corporate.Alpha debuted in September 2021, on a take a look at flight that failed shortly after liftoff. The rocket’s second mission, in October 2022, was a partial success; it delivered seven satellites to orbit however apparently deployed them too low.Alpha aced its third mission, the aforementioned “Victus Nox.” Flight quantity 4, which launched on Dec. 22 of final 12 months, was extra of a blended bag. The rocket delivered its payload, an electronically steerable antenna developed by aerospace large Lockheed Martin, to low Earth orbit however didn’t obtain the goal orbit. Nonetheless, Lockheed Martin was capable of “efficiently full their major mission goals, together with speedy commissioning of the satellite tv for pc following insertion,” Firefly wrote in an replace in regards to the mission in February.