An Alpha rocket and its NASA cargo of CubeSats blasted off Wednesday from Vandenberg Space Force Base with a dusk departure that created a colorful display for the small vehicle’s fifth flight.

The Firefly Aerospace two-stage rocket, which stands about 97 feet tall and features a carbon fiber structure, lifted off at 9:04 p.m. from Space Launch Complex-2 for a mission the Texas-based firm dubbed “Noise of Summer.” 

Thanks to the twilight phenomenon, the rocket’s contrail coincidentally matched the colorful logo created for the mission. 

The twilight phenomenon, or jellyfish effect, occurs for launches near sunset and sunrise when conditions including the sunlight and unspent frozen fuel participles reflect assorted colors in the contrail. 

Soon after launch, people across Southern California as well as in Arizona and Nevada posted pictures of the rocket’s unique flight on social media shortly after liftoff.

Ground controllers reported the rocket achieved “nominal orbit insertion,” a key milestone for the mission. An hour after the launch, Firefly confirmed that all eight payloads had deployed and that at least one operator reportedly had already communicated with a craft.

“The Firefly team knocked it out of the park,” said Bill Weber, CEO of Firefly Aerospace. “As a NASA vendor for both launch and lunar services, we look forward to continuing this partnership and supporting the agency’s larger space exploration goals from Earth to the Moon and beyond.”

Alpha, developed to deliver small satellites into orbit, carried eight CubeSats from NASA’s Venture Class Launch Services demonstration contract as the space agency looks for a low-cost way to conduct scientific research and technology demonstrations in space. 

The small satellites came from universities, a nonprofit organization and NASA centers across the country, including the University of Arizona’s CatSat, a technology demonstration of an inflatable antenna for high-speed communications. 

For its mission, CatSat’s antenna will deploy and inflate to a diameter of a little more than 1½ feet to transmit high-definition Earth photos to X-band ground stations at about 50 megabits per second. That’s more than five times faster than typical home internet speeds.

The University of Kansas KUbeSat-1 will demonstrate a new method to measure the energy and species of primary cosmic rays hitting Earth utilizing a Cosmic Ray Detector. 

The University of Maine’s MESAT1 involves a climate-focused payload that will identify urban heat islands, determine concentration of phytoplankton in water bodies, and help predict harmful algal blooms. 

Serenity 3 from Teachers in Space’s includes a suite of data sensors and a camera that will send data back to Earth and communicate with amateur radios on the ground, allowing anyone with a ham radio to “talk” to Serenity. For details on communicating with and requesting photos from Serenity, visit TIS.org/Serenity-satellite.

The University of Washington’s Satellite for Optimal Control and Imaging (SOC-i) to test an algorithm aimed at supporting autonomous operations on spacecraft.

“NASA is using CubeSat missions to demonstrate the capability of small rockets and build relationships with this new part of the U.S. launch vehicle industry,” said Hamilton Fernandez, mission manager for NASA’s Launch Services Program.

The fifth liftoff came after Firefly announced a multi-launch agreement with Lockheed Martin for 25 missions on the Alpha rocket through 2029. This agreement commits Lockheed Martin to 15 launch reservations and 10 optional launches.

Those launches will occur from both the West and East coasts, with the first mission, Alpha flight 6, taking later this year from Vandenberg.

The mission will be conducted as another responsive space operation that includes transporting the payload fairing to the launch pad, mating it to Firefly’s Alpha rocket, and completing final launch operations within hours of the scheduled liftoff.

Firefly also has announced two new launch locations for future missions.

Alpha will be capable to launching at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia. To accommodate Alpha, Pad-0A will be configured for the Firefly rocket as early as 2025 in addition to Antares 330 and the Medium Launch Vehicle Firefly is co-developing with Northrop Grumman. 

Additionally, Firefly will launch from Europe.

The Swedish Space Corp. and Firefly have signed a collaborative agreement to jointly launch satellites aboard the Alpha rocket from the newly inaugurated spaceport at Esrange Space Center in Sweden, starting in 2026.