Rocket Factory Augsburg - RFA

Welcome 2025! Before we hit the ground running again this year, let's take a brief look back at the very successful past year and recap. And then we'll keep going - we have to launch a first test flight!

All right, we'll just make a start before everyone goes into the new year at different times and is (hopefully) busy with themselves and their loved ones anyway: The whole team at RFA wishes you, our customers, investors, partners, suppliers, political and institutional supporters, as well as the entire space industry and its community a Happy New Year. We know that behind all these collective terms, many people are working hard and tirelessly every day to drive Europe's space sector forward. Without you, RFA would not be where we are today. For this and for your passion, we would like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts. See you in 2025, the year of our first test flight!

#RFAdvent Day 24 Merry Christmas from our teams in Germany, Sweden, Scotland and Portugal! 🎄🎁 RFA wishes you and your loved ones a wonderful festive season. Enjoy this time full of joy and thoughtfulness! We look back on an eventful year full of unique moments, including the graffiti signatures on the (pragmatic & low-cost) wooden crate in which our S1002 was transported to our launch pad in Scotland. We look forward to continuing our journey with you, stay tuned to reach the stars with us in 2025 💫

🚀 #RFAdvent Day 23 This year in July, RFA successfully passed the qualification test for its third stage Redshift OTV at the test stand near Augsburg 🔥 It included a nearly 600s (10 minutes!) burn after an assumed stage separation, followed by a 40 minute coasting phase simulation, and a 30s orbit circularization burn 🌐 The star of the show was our in-house developed Fenix engine with green fuel, which is non-toxic, storable, has a good specific impulse, and is easily accessible. Fenix can be ignited a number of times, allowing Redshift to fly to different orbits to deploy customers flexibly and precisely. Watch the full behind-the-scenes video of our Redshift OTV qualification here: https://lnkd.in/d8hWePz9

🚀 #RFAdvent Day 22 Last year, we were super thankful for hosting one of the biggest influencers in the space industry: Tim Dodd, the Everyday Astronaut, visited us for a day in our HQ in Germany. We gave him a very unique look behind the scenes of a European launch service provider - from a tour of our workshop to our test site near Augsburg. If you haven't seen him interviewing our co-founder Dr. Stefan Brieschenk inside the tank of a first stage, watch his video now: https://lnkd.in/dshf8M6T

🚀 #RFAdvent Day 21 Remember the giant Kinder egg – the rocket's fairing? Inside you will find the payloads, which are treated with care like Christmas presents. Speaking of payloads: the photo shows Cirium 5 from our customer Planetary Transportation Systems GmbH during our first joint activities in Scotland. Also flying with us on our TestFlight1 are our customers Dcubed and AMSAT Deutschland. Santa has his sledge to fit all the presents in – we have our #Redshift OTV to transport multiple satellites at the same time into orbit!

🚀 #RFAdvent Day 20 Last (but not last) stage standing. For several months, our ~20m high first stage was the distinguishing feature at the SaxaVord Spaceport , defying the wind, rain and salt water. Especially at night it looks quite mystic, although it seems that someone was still working below it in the launch stool. S1002 was the first of many stages that will stand on this launch stool. 📸 RFA/Marc Haßenpflug

🚀 #RFAdvent Day 19 Throwback Thursday: This picture was taken over four years ago during the construction of our test stand in Sweden at SSC - Swedish Space Corporation. In line with our low-cost philosophy, we simply stacked old shipping containers as a blast wall and filled them with sand. In the (quite raw) test stand structure you can see the silver ring of the water deluge system, which cools the exhaust jet of the Helix engine and the flame deflector ramp. Only 1.5 years later, we have written European spaceflight history on this test stand!

🚀 #RFAdvent Day 18 That’s no giant Kinder egg, we told the children from a kindergarten who visited us at RFA Portugal – it’s the RFA ONE fairing, prepped and ready for shipping! The fairing acts as the rocket’s protective shell, carefully surrounding the payload to shield it from the harsh conditions during ascent, like aerodynamic forces and intense heat. Curious about what’s inside?!

🚀 #RFAdvent Day 17 🔥 Today we would like to honor our team who managed to achieve two incredible multi-engine hotfires with our first stage this year. What an achievement! Once again captured with an analogue camera 📸 RFA/Marc Haßenpflug Rewatch the video on our first multiple-engine S1 hot fire here: https://lnkd.in/dgrWgkre