Firefly Aerospace released its Q3 earnings results after market close yesterday, posting quarterly revenues of $30.8M—98% higher than Q2—and upping its full year guidance to $150-$158M.
The news sent the stock price up over 15% in aftermarket trading, but the stock remains well below its IPO price of $45.
Mixed bag: Despite the revenue jump, Firefly’s net loss for the quarter totaled $140.4M, reflecting an increase in the company’s total operating expenses.
This year, Firefly was the first commercial company to successfully land and complete a mission on the lunar surface—and that’s just the beginning. The company has multiple NASA CLPS missions on the calendar, including a $176.7M contract for a fourth mission of its Blue Ghost Lander awarded in July.
Across all of its hardware business lines—the Alpha and Eclipse rockets, the Blue Ghost lunar lander, and the Elytra satellite platform—the company boasts a revenue backlog of $1.3B.
It’s not all smooth sailing, however. Firefly has had a hard time standing up reliable launch capabilities, and faces potential delays in a launch campaign that’s already been riddled with failures.
In September, the first stage of Firefly’s seventh Alpha mission exploded on the pad during a preflight test. Before the mishap, Firefly was aiming to launch its seventh and eighth Alpha missions before the end of the year, now it’s hoping to launch flight seven either in Q4 2025 or Q1 2026, and flight eight further down the line.
To the Dome: The earnings call was the first quarterly release since Firefly closed its ~$855M acquisition of SciTec, a firm developing remote sensing and data processing solutions for commercial and defense customers.
Firefly officials shared how the company plans to meld its hardware with SciTec’s AI software capabilities to take on a wider range of missions, especially in the defense world.
SciTec’s capabilities include missile warning and defense tech, remote sensing and SDA, as well as autonomous command and control capabilities that can work with Firefly’s hardware.
CEO Jason Kim outlined three areas where Firefly is pursuing Golden Dome applications, including:
- Flying and delivering space-based interceptors aboard Elytra spacecraft,
- Launching hypersonic tests aboard the Alpha rocket,
- Forming a network of sensors to perform fire control with SciTec’s ground processing capabilities.
“With SciTech, Firefly will be able to provide the Golden Dome program with comprehensive end-to-end capabilities,” Kim said. “That’s something that gives us multiple shots of the goal for Golden Dome.”
