Say hello to the next generation of space cowboys. This week, private aerospace firm FireFly Space Systems in Austin, Texas, revealed the design of the FireFly Alpha, a shiny new vehicle that aims to launch lightweight satellites at low cost.
FireFly was founded in January this year and has former SpaceX and Virgin Galactic employees on staff. The company's mission is to reduce costs for lighter loads going to low Earth orbit, such as constellations of small satellites used for communications networks or monitoring Earth.
This is going to get the NSA's and NRO's panties in a bunch, particularly when private citizens and organizations start lofting cubesats into orbit that can do things like real time monitoring of objects entering and leaving Earth's atmosphere. To read more, click here.