Rocket Report: Firefly enters “hot standby phase”; SpaceX’s superfluity of fairings

Enlarge / SpaceX's Super Heavy rocket performs a second static fire test in late August, in South Texas. (credit: SpaceX)

Welcome to Edition 6.09 of the Rocket Report! Friday marks the first day of September and the start of the final third of the year. Is it possible that 2023 is already two-thirds of the way over? Well, if you're a space company working toward a 2023 milestone, I'm here to tell you it is. Good luck to everyone out there working on a hard deadline. Journalists may not understand aerospace engineering, but we do understand deadlines.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Firefly says "hot standby phase" has begun for next Alpha launch. Firefly Aerospace and Millennium Space Systems announced Wednesday they are standing by waiting for orders from the US Space Force to prepare to launch a satellite on short notice, Space News reports. Although this mission has been promoted as a 24-hour call-up, the companies have spent months rehearsing and preparing. The intent of the demonstration is to help the Space Force and the space industry contractors figure out processes to accelerate the planning and execution of national security missions.