Firefly

American commercial small-lift orbital rocket

Alpha is Firefly Aerospace's small-lift launcher, with one of the rockiest paths to reliability in recent memory — its first four flights included an explosive 2021 debut, a partial success, and a partial failure. It finally stuck a clean orbital mission in September 2023, then returned to flight in March 2026 after an April 2025 launch failure and a September 2025 ground-test explosion that destroyed another first stage. Firefly also builds the first stage of the next Antares.