Firefly

Texas-based space and defense company that builds the Alpha and Eclipse rockets, Blue Ghost lunar landers and Elytra orbital vehicles. It listed on Nasdaq in August 2025 and acquired SciTec in October 2025.

Industry: Launch vehicles and spacecraft | Location: Cedar Park, United States | Founded: 2017

About Firefly

Firefly Aerospace Inc. is a space and defense technology company headquartered in Cedar Park, Texas. It builds launch vehicles and spacecraft: Alpha, a small-to-medium lift rocket; Eclipse, a larger rocket developed with Northrop Grumman; Blue Ghost lunar landers; and Elytra orbital vehicles. Its annual report names NASA, the U.S. Space Force and Lockheed Martin among its customers.

The company says it began operations in 2017. Jason Kim became chief executive on 1 October 2024; he previously led Millennium Space Systems. Kirk Konert is chairman, Darren Ma is chief financial officer and Shea Ferring is chief technology officer. Co-founder Tom Markusic moved from chief executive to the board in June 2022. Firefly had 1,409 employees on 31 December 2025.

Firefly builds rockets in Briggs, Texas, and spacecraft in Cedar Park. It launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, Wallops Island in Virginia, and Esrange in Kiruna, Sweden. At the end of 2025 its backlog was about $1.4 billion.

Alpha first flew in 2021 and reached orbit in October 2022. Blue Ghost Mission 1 launched in January 2025 and landed on the Moon on 2 March 2025, which Firefly says made it the first private company to do so. Alpha Flight 7 launched in March 2026. On 30 June 2026 NASA awarded Firefly a $144 million Commercial Lunar Payload Services contract for another Blue Ghost mission, targeted for 2028.

AE Industrial Partners took a majority stake in March 2022, when Firefly closed a $75 million Series B round it led. Northrop Grumman invested $50 million in May 2025 to advance Eclipse. Firefly priced its initial public offering on 6 August 2025, selling 19,296,000 shares at $45 on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker FLY. It completed the $855 million acquisition of SciTec, a national security technology company, on 31 October 2025.

For the first half of 2026 Firefly reported revenue of $198.6 million, up from $71.4 million a year earlier, and a net loss of $189.0 million. It held $459.8 million in cash on 30 June 2026.

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