Firefly Aerospace Alpha rocket on the pad before the April 29 mission, which suffered an anomaly. Photo: Trevor Mahlamann / Firefly Aerospace

A Firefly Aerospace Alpha rocket suffered an anomaly during a Tuesday launch, losing the payload for customer Lockheed Martin. 

The Alpha FLTA006 mission launched at 6:37 am PDT from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. It was carrying Lockheed Martin’s LM 400 tech demonstration satellite, which fell into the Pacific Ocean. 

Firefly Aerospace issued a post-launch update, reporting the vehicle had a nominal liftoff and first stage flight. But the rocket experienced a mishap between stage separation and second stage ignition. Firefly said this “led to the loss of the Lightning engine nozzle extension, substantially reducing the engine’s thrust.” 

Firefly reported the upper stage did not reach orbital velocity, and the stage and payload fell into the Pacific Ocean. 

“Firefly recognizes the hard work that went into payload development and would like to thank our mission partners at Lockheed Martin for their continued support. The team is working closely with our customers and the FAA to conduct an investigation and determine root cause of the anomaly. We will provide more information on our mission page after the investigation is completed,” the launcher said in a statement. 

The LM 400 satellite on the mission has been in the works for years, designed as a mid-class bus with more payload power than smallsats, but more agile than traditional large satellites. It was self-funded by Lockheed Martin as a technology demonstrator. Lockheed Martin designed LM 400 with common components to adapt it to a variety of orbits and missions, including missile tracking, remote sensing, and communications. 

This is a setback for Firefly Aerospace’s launch program as it was the first Alpha launch of 2025. The Alpha rocket has had a mixed success record, completing the successful VICTUS NOX Tactically Responsive Space mission for the U.S. Space Force in 2023 and a NASA Venture Class Launch Services mission in July of last year. 

But Alpha’s first flight in 2021 failed, and then missions in October 2022 and December 2023 were partial failures where in both cases, the satellites did not reach target orbit. 

In March, Firefly Aerospace marked the first successful soft-landing on the Moon by a commercial company with its Blue Ghost lunar lander, launched by SpaceX.