After travelling for about 19 minutes in dark and cloudy skies, the rocket successfully separated its payload into the desired Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO)
The Firefly constellation satellites were integrated via Exolaunch and launched aboard the Transporter-12 rideshare mission with SpaceX. The launch took place around 1 am
The 18 satellites were the initial batch for China’s Qianfan ("Thousand Sails") broadband network, intended to serve as China’s equivalent of Elon Musk’s Starlink. They were launched on Tuesday aboard the Long March 6A rocket from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in Shanxi Province, North China.