Cedar Park-Based Firefly Aerospace Reports Fire During Launch

CEDAR PARK, TX — Firefly Aerospace officials said a fire broke out in the engine bay during a rocket launch nearly 30 miles from its home base on Thursday, officials said.

Based in Cedar Park, Firefly Aerospace is a maker of small launch vehicles for commercial, national security and civil space customers. The company maintains a 200-acre manufacturing and test facility in Briggs, Texas, 27 miles north of its headquarters.

On Thursday, Jan. 22, test engineers were conducting a planned test of the first stage of the company’s “Alpha” launch vehicle, company officials said in a press advisory. The test was to be the first in a series of propulsion tests to verify design and operation of the stage, and involved a short, 5-second firing of the stage’s four engines, officials added.

Just before 6:30 p.m., the stage’s engines were fired up before sparking a conflagration that erupted in the engine bay at the base of the rocket’s stage, company officials confirmed. The 5-second test was immediately aborted and the test facility’s fire suppression system extinguished the fire, according to Firefly officials.

Firefly posted a video of the mishap on LinkedIn:

“Yesterday evening we attempted to hotfire test the Alpha first stage for the first time," Firefly officials said in a prepared statement. "Unfortunately, after the four Reaver engines ignited, an engine bay fire developed (flame jet to the left in video). The system immediately shut itself down and the fire was quickly extinguished by automatic ground fire suppression systems. We are carefully reviewing data, inspecting hardware (photo in comments is from today) and performing root cause analysis to assess and mitigate the cause of the anomaly before we return to testing.”

No injuries were reported, and the cause of the anomaly is under investigation. Firefly engineers are reviewing test data from the stage to identify potential causes for the test failure, and Firefly officials said they will share results of that investigation once it is complete.

"Firefly is committed to workplace safety, and at no time during the test were Firefly operations personnel or the public in danger," officials said in a prepared statement. "Firefly is coordinating closely with local authorities and emergency response personnel as it investigates the anomaly and refines its contingency procedures."

Photo of the Firefly Alpha stage courtesy of Firefly Aerospace.