Aug 20, 2020
The Firefly Alpha rocket will feature a drag sail, called Spinnaker3 and designed by engineers at Purdue University, on its inaugural launch in November this year. It has been accepted to fly as part of the DREAM program, which will allow several academic and educational payloads to ride to space at no cost. The sail will be used to return the rocket to Earth. The Firefly Alpha launch will target an orbital altitude of about 320 km, but the Spinnaker3 is capable of deorbiting from an orbit of 640 km or more, thanks to the 3m carbon fiber booms that pull the 194 square feet sail. The sail is made from a shimmery translucent material – CP-1 fluorinated polyimide, manufactured by NeXolve. Spinnaker3 is a prototype for a product line of drag sails that is being developed by Vestigo Aerospace LLC, a startup company founded by David Spencer, an adjunct professor at Purdue. The idea is to develop drag sails of varying sizes and boom lengths tailored to the type of spacecraft.

Aug 20, 2020
Firefly had 46 interns in the 2020 summer intern class. They assisted with everything from updating IT systems to integrating the first Alpha flight vehicle.

Aug 20, 2020
The Alpha flight 1 payload section and stage 1 are both undergoing flight acceptance testing.

Aug 11, 2020
Elizabeth Howell from space.com interviewed Firefly's COO Robb Kulin. Despite the pandemic and supplier delays, the company continued to grow, expanding from 250 employees in January to 310 employees in August, largely via funding from company co-founder Max Polyakov. Firefly is targeting a launch sometime in late October or early November, provided final testing and certification go as planned. As an extra precaution, Vandenberg officials requested the first Alpha mission to fly a relatively safe inclination to orbit that would use a little more fuel than normal. The second and third Alpha rockets are already under construction for their missions in 2021. The nominal mission sequence calls for each of the first three rockets to fly about three months after its immediate predecessor, but eventually, the launch pace will quicken. Firefly is also "starting to turn up the heat on the development of Beta vehicle," a launcher designed for medium-sized missions. The Cape Canaveral site will be activated fairly soon, allowing the company to aim, eventually, for interplanetary launches and moon missions, since the Cape's low-latitude location provides a boost for rockets headed toward such distant destinations.

Aug 11, 2020
Autodesk presented a customer success video about Firefly. The company used Autodesk Inventor software to design the Alpha rocket, Autodesk Vault to improve productivity and avoid doing duplicate work. After the first flight Firefly will need to improve its rocket design through the process known as generative design, and for that it will use advanced tools such as Autodesk Fusion 360.

Aug 7, 2020
The Strongback, which is used to restrain the rocket before launch, is on the way to Firefly’s launch site at Vandenberg AFB. This is the final large structure needed to complete the company's Transporter-Erector-Launcher.

Aug 6, 2020
Firefly has added a payload section test stand to their test site. This allows the company to verify designs by applying simulated loads to payload fairings and interface structures. Every payload segment will be acceptance tested on the stand prior to flight.