Firefly Aerospace's Alpha rocket aced a test flight today (Oct. 1), successfully delivering a handful of tiny satellites to Earth orbit for the first time ever.

The 95-foot-tall (29 meters) rocket lifted off from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base today at 3:01 a.m. EDT (12:01 a.m. local California time; 0701 GMT),

Kicking off a demonstration mission that Firefly called "Alpha Flight 2: To The Black."

Kicking off a demonstration mission that Firefly called "Alpha Flight 2: To The Black."

During the first, a test flight from Vandenberg in September 2021, one of the rocket's four first-stage Reaver engines shut down prematurely, leading to the loss of the mission.

Things went better today; Alpha climbed into the California sky smoothly and hit its marks as planned.

Things went better today; Alpha climbed into the California sky smoothly and hit its marks as planned.

The rocket's two stages separated about 2.5 minutes after liftoff, and the upper stage inserted into an elliptical transfer orbit five minutes after that.

The upper stage performed a brief circularization burn with its single Lightning engine about 53 minutes after launch, maneuvering itself into an orbit targeted to be 190 miles above Earth.

The mission plan called for all three payloads to be deployed just under an hour after liftoff.

The mission plan called for all three payloads to be deployed just under an hour after liftoff.