Firefly Aerospace Q1 Earnings: Moon Missions, Defense Tech & More

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]Firefly Aerospace have recently released their Q1 earnings report and whilst once again they had a record quarter of revenue. They're working on a lot of exciting things from having two launch vehicles in the works. You've got Eclipse and then Firefly Alpha which is already currently launching. They've got the recent acquisition of Scitec which is a defense software company and then of course their big big Luna ambitions which are being supported at the moment by the increased Luna budget coming from NASA. So what I want to do in today's video is go through this earnings report. I'm also going to run you through my notes from the call with the executive team and speak about what might be to come from Firefly, how they are currently executing on their core areas of their business and then touch on the financials as well. So let's jump right into it. So first of all, we'll start off by looking at the stock price.

[00:00:47]So uh I am a shareholder of Firefly Aerospace. My average is around $26, I believe. Uh this is not a huge position for me and it is not one that is definitely kind of a sit and hold and look at in five years. I am keeping a very close eye on this company to see how it executes especially with a lot of focus on the space industry at the moment with the upcoming SpaceX IPO. But as you can see from the earnings report which was released just over a week ago up 27% in 5 days there was a positive response and if we have a look year to date this company is up 78%. So, it has been on a really big run this year. That is, of course, having a big dip after its initial IPO last year. So, this is kind of where we're at over the past year. Now, let's jump into the earnings report. So, what I'm going to do here is I'm going to run through the core business areas of Firefly, how they're making money, and how they're kind of planning to make more money in the future. And I'm going to run you through my notes that I've also taken alongside from the call. So, first of all, if we start here to give you a good rundown of what Firefly does. So, we actually start off on the spacecraft side of things.

[00:01:53]This is not just a rocket launcher. We have Blue Ghost, which is their Luna lander. They currently have already landed. They are the first private company to land on the moon, and they currently have three more Blue Ghost missions scheduled in over the next three years. They've got the Electra uh spacecraft, which is their spacecraft bus, which they can use for a number of different use cases. This is also going to be going to the moon in the next blue ghost mission as well. Then you have Scitec. This is a company that they acquired last year which is a defense software company and this is bringing in a lot of revenue for the business and is certainly going to bring or they're planning to bring in a lot of growth in 2026 from the scitec side of the business. And then over on launch we have the Alpha rocket which is their kind of small launch vehicle takes a ton to orbit and this has just had a successful flight earlier this year and they're planning to launch that more this year as well. and Eclipse is their future upcoming rocket which is a much more larger kind of medium lift launch vehicle which is still very much in development at the moment but that's kind of the main areas of the business.

[00:02:53]So, first of all, we're going to start off on the moon. And the moon is a really exciting industry for Firefly because as I said, they were the first commercial company to land on the moon.

[00:03:04]But what has actually happened recently is there a lot more there's a lot more focus on the moon with NASA recently coming out and really going big on their lunar ambitions. So, one thing that they were saying here in notes that I've got is they're now getting huge signal the demand for the moon is increasing and NASA has big stated goals and they're kind of ready and waiting for that. And they are kind of this say they said this supports their mission of moving to multiple moon missions per year. Um, and they said that the Blue Ghost and the Elytra spacecraft puts them in a great position to support this 20 billion buildout which is going to be for all the infrastructure and landers which NASA plans to put on the moon. They're already really working on this. They're already doing it. So, they say they're in a really good position to bid for these contracts to help NASA with this buildout and also physically scaling up as well. So, their ability to build these spacecrafts, they're already expanding their own clean room and they're working with their suppliers on other parts. said they are quite vertically integrated but of course they have suppliers they're getting suppliers ready they might want to increase this and they've built out their clean rooms to increase their capacity to build as well said about the next landing that should be towards the end of this year start of next year uh that's going to be the first American landing on the far side of the moon so that's going to be a really really exciting one um and again going back to the expanded expansion of their clean rooms they're working on landers that are not just kind of one-offs they want these to be templated and basically put into a production line essentially. So they can really help with this buildout on the moon. Like I said, they're vert integrated on a lot of parts on Blue Ghost, which is really, really positive. If you're a shareholder and you invest in a company, you want that intellectual property yourself.

[00:04:47]It's valuable for the company and it means they're not giving margin away to other suppliers. So they're helping with stuff such as avionics or they're making their own avionics, harnesses, carbon composites on that as well. Um, and another thing they announced, and this was kind of in the Q&A as well, or not announce, but answering, is not only do they want to increase the frequency of the launches, but they're also ready to expand the size of their lands as well.

[00:05:10]At the moment, Blue Ghost is quite a small lander, and if you want to be bringing a lot of payload up to the moon, you need to be expanding that and they're kind of already planning on that as well. And they said a lot of the designs they have are expandable and scalable. So, they've already got this technology to build a lander and land it on the moon. A lot of that stuff can be expanded to make a bigger lander in the future, which is going to be what's needed. Talking about budgets as well.

[00:05:34]So mentioned there's like a 20 billion buildout for this. And he's also said there's like commercial lunar payload services. The clips, there's like a couple of those contracts going. He said those have also NASA's budget they want to spend on that has also been increased by billions um recently as well. So NASA really are going big on their moon ambitions and it certainly looks like number one Firefly are in a good position to capitalize on that and number two they are ready to capitalize on that as well.

[00:06:02]um says kind of looking at the plans as well there are a lot of landings that are planned by NASA and these all need to be bigger as well and Firefly is kind of ready and waiting and planning for that as well said NASA has already this is actually talking about some questions of okay we've got all these ideas and kind of growth coming hopefully from the moon in the future what contracts are out there already when can firefire look to be benefiting from this apart from their existing four landers and uh they said that NASA already has kind of lunar plans out for solicitation. So he mentioned CX2, Moonfall, Moonfall, Eclipse 2.0. These are all Luna projects um from NASA. Firefly has put in a solicitation for some of these or all of these. Wasn't really clear on that. Um you can kind of expect results on that to be coming no earlier than Q3. So hopefully around Q3 is when NASA might actually start delivering some awards and some contracts for some of the some of this lunar buildout.

[00:07:01]And then talking about actually the money they get currently. So give a good idea of how they're monetizing Blue uh Blue Ghost currently. So Blue Ghost mission 2, the one it's going to launch next, that got $130 million funding from NASA, but they said that they also got additional payloads on there as well, which they can get more money from. So for example, there's a rover on this next one, which is from the UAE, and there's also the Ocula imaging service, which is going to be on their Electra spacecraft as well.

[00:07:30]So, when it comes to the moon, um, number one, they're already doing it.

[00:07:36]They're already building stuff that is going to the moon. They've already been on the moon, but it looks like they're just really preparing and waiting to capitalize on all this extra budget that's coming from NASA. And I do hope as well there might be some commercial need for this as well. So, on their already having some commercial payloads on their landers, but are other companies going to want to be jumping on this as well? And does Blue Ghost and Firefly actually have a lot of intellectual property and knowledge from their landers on the moon already which will be applicable to that buildout.

[00:08:08]Next we'll move on to from the BlueO spacecraft to the Elytra um spacecraft.

[00:08:14]So get down to my notes on this. So one of the things they did announce recently is the Nvidia collaboration for moon imaging. So this is putting Nvidia GP an Nvidia GPU or GPUs on their Electra spacecraft um to basically now enable realtime processing. So rather than having the data go to the relay and sent back to Earth for processing, they can do real-time processing actually on the spacecraft around the moon. Um he said there's a couple of ways that this is going to be done as well. So number one, this Electra spacecraft is going to be the transfer vehicle and communications relay for for Blue Ghost. So why it's on its journey to the moon and also why it's landing. This spacecraft will stay in orbit of the moon I believe and is going to be a communications relay for getting data from Blue Ghost back to Earth and also just processing in Blue Ghost and helping support that mission.

[00:09:05]The landing after that is going to have a 5year life cycle in lunar orbit and then it's going to be used for imaging.

[00:09:11]So uh imaging of the moon's surface and that's going to have a 5year life cycle.

[00:09:16]So really really important little spacecraft. It's not just going to be helping the landing and the operations of Blue Ghost uh but it's also going to be imaging for 5 years as well which is also that Nvidia uh GPU is going to be helping for that as well. Um they said data will be processed on the Electra uh spacecraft and transmitted back to Earth with real-time actual insights and they're also going to be using their scitec AI software on that as well. So again, it's not just dumping all of the data back to Earth. It's actually going to be processing data there so it can actually uh provide useful stuff back down to Earth. Um, also this spacecraft, they're focused on space domain awareness. So they're working on this new contract with the defense innovation unit, which is great to see as well.

[00:09:58]This spacecraft bus, if we can learn anything from Rocket Lab, is you have the essentials of a spacecraft bus and then you create lots of uses for that and you put other payloads on it. So working with getting defense contracts on that as well and maybe even commercial contracts as well is going to be great for the growth of this particular product. Um and in terms of this first launch, so the Electra uh hardware is in production. The design review of this has been um completed and I believe the first launch is going to be on the Blue Ghost uh second mission.

[00:10:30]Um and he said as well this blue goes to launch uh and the relay service that is providing is also going to be their pathway to a more commercial offering.

[00:10:40]So they can they can show all the stuff they can do with this spacecraft and then can provide maybe some sort of relay service or other applications to the commercial market as well and they're ready to scale up production of this uh spacecraft as demand increases.

[00:10:55]So on this what I'm reading through this is that they're building all the technology there. they're going to be testing this technology or putting it into practice on the Blue Ghost 2. We're kind of waiting for a contract to do with this spacecraft would be fantastic and basically just to see how this can turn from a planned project research development product into what kind of value is it going to be providing either in defense which they've got planning uh other government contracts or with uh the commercial side of things as well.

[00:11:25]Now we'll move to Scitec which is definitely the main area of growth for Firefly at the moment. It's probably one of the most exciting areas as well. I would say personally it is looking at that kind of lunar ambitions and then also what extra growth can we get from Scitec if you're looking for what exciting things to come. So with Scitec they said about revenue forge the Ford contract and the Golden Dome did ramp up this quarter. So they're getting revenue from this quarter. Um, and they said they've also, as I've spoken about before, they got selected for the Golden Dome space-based interceptor program.

[00:11:59]So, this is really, really big that money is already getting dished out for the Golden Dome and they're one of the first people to get this. Scitec is an AI or software platform and they're going to be a lot of the brains behind this uh interceptor program is going. I don't know the exact amount on this, but we know that it was a 3.2 billion total award that was that was across 12 companies, I believe. So some of that has gone towards Firefly.

[00:12:24]Um talking about the golden do golden dome as a big opportunity. So again this is the other big opportunity I see. Uh CEO said that when it comes to golden dome five have multiple shots on goal for golden dome. Scitec is battle tested and they see there's a lot of activity recently. So with the recent uh conflict that's happened in the Middle East scitec has already been being put into action in that and it's extremely transferable what it's doing at the moment to the golden dome. We can see they've already got one uh one contract for this and yeah it seems like as he says there's a lot of shots on goal.

[00:12:57]There's a lot of way a lot of ways that Scitec can help the Golden Dome build out in the future. So hopefully there might be some bigger contracts uh coming from that in the future. Um talking about the for the forge contract. So if I go and check back on my notes this as well. So we did have a um engineering change proposal. So $ 109 million on that as well. and they are the prime contract on this as well. So that's an an AI missile warning and tracking architecture. They're the prime contract for that as well.

[00:13:29]And I believe this this forge system as well, they might have said this is actually being directly used at the moment in the Middle East or to help um they completed interim ground readiness review for their tranch one of the SDA contract. So that was done in this quarter and they gained a new contract from uh for scitec for the air force research laboratory as well. So scitec does seem to be helping in a lot of different ways. Um and talking about the future of scitec as well they announced they kind of spoke about this a couple of times on the call but scitec is kind of an operational software platform. They already have data centers down on Earth for processing data and they currently already have experience with on orbit processing which is a very big topic at the moment with what SpaceX are trying to do. They do say that this is what they're wanting to do this low latency on orbit processing. So whatever spacecraft you have in orbit actually doing the data processing for that up in space. So you can actually give um much better data down to earth with low latency as well. So the speed of communication is very fast. They've said that they're already doing this, but that is an area they're really kind of looking to push and expand in the future is being able to do this on on the device on the satellites more and more.

[00:14:43]Next, we'll go on to launch and we'll start off with the Alpha rocket. So, we did have some updates on this. So, first of all, we've got some some good clarity about the first launch, the seventh launch they did. So good confirmation from them that this Loheed Martin payload was delivered and all missions objectives for this uh launch were completed which is really really good news and they also had a flawless launch with a relight of the second stage and that is what um I believe the problem was with the recent blue origin launch.

[00:15:15]So the fact they demonstrated this full launch they deployed the payload and they successfully did a second stage another relight in orbit does seem that they've got a lot going with that rocket. Of course, it has had spotted past. It has not been successful in the ramp up, but it looks like they've had really good results from this. And hopefully we can see when they're getting this block two launch done, uh, a higher a higher cadence and continued success from that as well. And also in this first launch, they validated a lot of the key block 2 systems. There's a lot of changes that comes in block two, a lot of which are more vertically integrated and also for speed of launch.

[00:15:51]They tested some of them on this uh recent flight as well. They completed the Space Force Victus DM simulation mission which they which I'm think from the sounds of it is basically just a full simulation of rapid uh readiness to launch. So they completed that and then with flight 8 uh they're targeting to launch late this summer and are on to integration and test phase. So this is the block two article. There's a lot of focus on reliability and production rate in this. This is going to be the first launch of that block two article. So says late summer here as well. So, what they did also say is that they're still targeting three more alpha launches in 2026. I personally know about the space industry and how launches slip will be super super shocked if they manage to do three more this year. That would be a real big step up in cadence. Um, but let's see how they go. They're targeting a flight in late summer. So, we can see how they um how they do with the ramp up after that.

[00:16:49]Also, they spoke about this here. So, the Seagate launch platform. Um so there is like an agreement there. So why that is kind of or why they kind of stressed it is this is something that the uh space force is key. They they're kind of really big on responsive launch and being able to have this done from a simple floating platform is a really really key benefit that they can bring with Alpha. So this is not just kind of a a a new way to deliver commercial payloads. does seem that it might be valuable to the Space Force for them to be able to do this. And we know they're also looking for kind of um flexible launch they call it, but to have their launch system and that setup to be able to transfer it to different places like the um the sea launch, but also it's with Sweden. And I believe they've got a partnership as well to basically kind of have a partnership where the they're they're selling their rockets essentially to this launch complex in Sweden and they will be managing the launch from there.

[00:17:51]Um they did say as well they recently had the space symposium which is kind of a big space event where all the space companies get together and said they saw very strong interest in alpha at this space symposium after the successful launch from flight 7. So it seems like and he did say that demand is just not an issue with the Alpha rocket and they're seeing uh good demand and good interest from that. I think one thing for me about the scale of Alpha is they already had a huge amount of Alpha rockets already sold. They had like uh well over a billion dollars worth of backlog they have now. They've had a lot of that for a while and I believe that is most likely pre-booking alpha launches which they kind of needed to do in the early stages like all rocket companies need to do to enable to secure funding. So with having really strong demand now they also have a lot of old launches I believe that they still need to work through first. Um and they also are probably going to be lower margin as well because it's with a largely untested rocket and Peter Beck of Rocket Lab has spoken about this as well. you do really need to push through those low gross margin cheaper launches, but it was nec it was pretty much necessary to book them so you can get the the funding to build out the rocket in the first place. So, they need to be getting through this backlog of launches they've got first of all before I'm going to get super excited about them booking new bigger launch contracts. I think that's just not the the problem that they need to be stressing out about at the moment.

[00:19:18]Moving on from that, and we can see we've got some good pictures as well of like the block two rocket. Um, but certainly got they have a automated fiber placement machine as well that they're building parts with. So, it's going to be good to see to see that finally launch.

[00:19:31]Uh, Eclipse. So, on the Eclipse rocket, so this is their reusable medium lift vehicle. We don't have a ton of talk about this. It is very much just kind of they speak a bit about it on the side, but it it's going to be reusable. I'm not sure if it's going to be reusable on the first flight or not. It's kind of a bit mixed on that in terms of what I've been able to dig around in. Um, but the major kind of flight pieces of flight hardware and flight articles for this initial launch um are in build and in test at the moment, including the Miranda flight engines are currently in build and in testing phase. We're looking into 2027 for first launch of that of that I believe as well. They've also completed testing for the interstage and the first stage tanks are currently being tested beyond their limits. So test all for like structural and pressure load testing as well.

[00:20:20]And also we had another note I wanted to speak about like this this vehicle is going to be kind of behind neutron. It's already behind Blue Origin. We've got space. We got SpaceX has already got the Falcon 9 rocket. Where is this going to fit? especially if it's not going to be extremely reusable straight away, which we're not sure about. They do have it seems like this is also kind of targeted for the um for the defense defense sector very much. We can see here like it's North Grumman which they are in partnership with for this for this rocket. this and also the Alpha that do seem to be quite heavily targeted at kind of government and defense missions and I think that might be what they're targeting um with the Eclipse launch vehicle as well. But of course, if we continue to have a real shortage of launch, this is just going to be another rocket that will be able to launch commercial payloads as well and maybe even their own payloads and the Electra SP spacecrafts themselves in the future as well.

[00:21:18]Now, we'll go on to the financials. So the financials, we've only got like a a small overview here, but I have taken notes from the call. So you can see revenue growth, another big jump up in revenue from 57 million last quarter to 80 million this quarter. A lot of that is come from Scitec um and the year-over-year revenue 45% increase and quarter over quarter revenue 40% increase. Um going on to my kind of notes on this as well to give you an idea of how they make revenue and how the revenue is recognized. So with their spacecraft solutions um that's recognized over time as milestones are hit which is quite common. So for example their blue ghost mission if we take that as they hit milestones of of making that mission uh come to fruition that's when they're going to be getting paid and of course a chunk at the end when it is actually launched as well. Uh for launch revenue all of that revenue is recognized once the launch occurs. So that's for alpha. And when it comes to Eclipse, which is in development, they're actually recognizing revenue as milestones as their hit at the moment in their collaboration with Northolk Grin.

[00:22:21]Um, but once that vehicle is actually operational, then the revenue will be recognized on launch just like the alpha one is as well. Having a look into the split of where revenue came from. So, spacecraft solutions which is um kind of hardware satellites and also scitec that was 67 million of revenue. So massive massive chunk of the revenue and launch was $13.3 million of revenue. What I think is actually quite good about that is the rumored launch price for a Firefly Alpha is around $15 million. So the fact that this is a launch which was booked quite a while ago I believe and it's on a rocket which is kind of this was their return to flight after already having a failed launch. This still not in a high cadence. Um, so to have a discount from 15 million down to 13.3 million if that was the cost of the full launch, I think that's not too bad actually. So, but you can see still heavily heavy weighted to spacecraft solutions. Said about the backlog, the backlog has stayed flat um on the previous quarter, but they are excited and kind of confident about the industry towins that happen at the moment. Demand for launch is increasing, the demand for the spacecraft and also the software on the scitec side of things as well. touch on gross margins. Uh gross margin dropped from 27% to 21% that was due to a mix of Scitec kind of government contracts which tend to be lower lower margin big defense contracts. Um OPEX went up slightly. So the oper operation operating expenditure went up slightly because they've now got Scitec completely on board and it's the expenditure for running Scitec as well.

[00:23:55]And the operating loss was $95 million.

[00:23:58]Um, and I think some of these finances is why like the stock did initially pop and then kind of dropped a little bit.

[00:24:04]This is one of the areas, the sticky areas of Firefly is that they're burning a lot of money. Operating loss of $95 million. They are growing very fast, which is good. Um, but we still do need this needs to have a route to profitability uh at some point in the future. And they're burning through a lot of cash. They do have their kind of good liquidity um for the next few quarters. So for me, I'm not too dissatisfied with that. Cash and short-term investments 551 million. So they're on an operating loss of 95 million. Cash and short-term investments of 550 million. Said they also have uh a credit facility which they can go into as well. And they expanded that from $260 million to $35 million. They haven't drawn any of that at the moment, but they do also have access to that. So to me, I'm not too worried about kind of a liquidity problem at the moment, but it's likely, in my personal opinion, I'm not going to be surprised if they have to raise more cash at some point just because this is such a kind of a cash cash burning business at the moment and the industry as well. So my kind of takeaways from this as well is they're working on a lot of really good things that I think open themselves up for potentially some big contracts to come in the future. What I'm particularly excited about again is Scitec. Um reason I'm excited about that is one that's probably bringing in a lot of revenue but it just seems in kind of what they're working on with putting AI into the software processing um data and then also the massive defense applications. It's been working on defense applications for decades already. I believe I think it just sets it up really well for the future of kind of data processing, but also more importantly the big buildout of the Golden Dome and increased spending of defense in space. That's why I'm excited there. And also the blue ghost side of things. I just think it's really really cool that basically taking an exciting project like landing on the moon, but it seems like there's going to be a lot of money in it in the future. And what has recently happened in the past few months is super super positive for Firefly.

[00:26:04]NASA have greatly like hugely increased their lunar ambitions and are wanting to do that with commercial partners. And for me, Firefly, although it hasn't got any money or deals from that yet, it seems like they're in perfect position with all the technology they've got from already having a lander on the moon and already having this cadence of future landers they are building to build more landers, build more capabilities to send stuff to the moon, more um orbital spacecraft around the moon, which they're going to be testing next. and also just expanding into building bigger versions of what they already do. So that's it for my rundown. And also just touch on this as well, they did reiterate their 2026 guidance of 420 million to $450 million. So that's my rundown. That's my rundown of these Firefly earnings. I wanted to go through this because as I said it's it's quite an interesting company working on a lot of interesting things and being invested in Rocket Lab for so long I I think a lot of the applications of learnings I've had from the space industry can apply to this. It's in a far different stage than Rocket Lab is and there are definitely there's definitely a lot more execution risk on this on this company.

[00:27:11]It's burning a lot of money um and it's hopefully going to make money in projects in the future but we still need to see those develop. So I'm keeping a close eye on this company. I'm happily uh a shareholder at the moment. I'm going to be keeping a close eye to make sure that it continues to execute um as as I want it to. So, I hope you found this useful. If you are a Firefly investor or you're researching the company, let me know in the comments.

[00:27:33]What are your thoughts on the company?

[00:27:34]Um what are your thoughts on the company for the next year and beyond? Do you think some of these ambitions like with Scitec on the defense side of things and also Blue Ghost and Lunar ambitions are going to turn out to be very positive for the company? Please do let me know your thoughts and apart from that, thank you for watching once again and I'll see you in the next video very soon.