 Former NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine is back in the space business, joining Firefly Aerospace's advisory board effective immediately. During his tenure at NASA, he oversaw the creation of the Artemis program and continued the support for the various commercial programs, which makes him a very valuable asset for Firefly. At the start of the month, they successfully reached orbit for the first time on just their second flight of the Alpha rocket. They saw them beat SpaceX, who only reached orbit on the fourth time of asking and matched Rocket Lab, who also reached orbit successfully on their second ever mission.