Firefly Aerospace Inc. Q4 FY2025 earnings call

2025 was a transformative year with over doubling annual revenue to $160 million, successful moon landing, IPO, and SciTech acquisition. Key operational highlights include Alpha Flight 7 success despite federal shutdown, Eclipse program progress with hot fire tests and assembly, Blue Ghost mission milestones, SciTech's FORGE program operational acceptance and contract wins, and Firefly's position in end-to-end space services with strategic partnerships for international launches.

In the fourth quarter, Firefly's total revenue was a record $57.7 million, with spacecraft solutions revenue at $50 million and launch revenue at $7.7 million. For the full year 2025, revenue reached $159.9 million, a 163% year-over-year increase. The company completed the SciTech acquisition, bolstering its national security contributions. Alpha had a successful seventh flight to orbit in the fourth quarter, and plans for three additional launches in 2026 to support Alpha Block 2. Eclipse is progressing with major flight articles in testing and target first launch no earlier than 2027. Blue Ghost completed structural qualification testing and has missions in progress. SciTech had multiple contract wins and program advancements, contributing to the spacecraft solutions revenue.

Firefly currently expects full-year 2026 revenue to be in the range of $420 million to $450 million, supported by four Alpha launches, execution on Blue Ghost missions, Eclipse and Electra program development, and software development for key government programs.

Q: For 2026 and the prepared remarks, you mentioned three additional launches this year, Jason, Darren, and including the Startup Block 2. So can you maybe talk about the cadence from here, how we think about those and the milestones ahead?

A: Hi, Sheila. Thanks for that question. This is Jason. We had a tremendous success Success with Alpha Flight 7. We're very proud of the team for what they accomplished on that mission. They're pouring through all the post-flight data, but from my lens, I was in the launch control center with the team and everything was nominal in terms of the first stage. We launched at the first instance of the window and also the second stage, the payload deployment, the relight of the lightning engine on the second stage as well. So very happy with the results there. But in parallel, we have been in production for our block two inaugural rocket will be flight eight, but we're also building nine and 10 as well. It's in production in terms of the carbon composite tanks, as well as the engines and the avionics. Obviously, we are always working closely with our customer for their customer readiness. We're working closely with the range and FAA for the range availability. Obviously, I don't have to say too much about the weather and safety factors as well. Those are all things that are considered. We are excited about accelerating the roadmap for our transition to Block 2. It is a more reliable and manufacturable rocket. Still use the same carbon composites, still use the same reverb and lightning engines, but we were able to de-risk the in-house avionics and batteries that we flew, and especially the avionics that we flew in shadow mode. on Flight 7, and so really happy with those results. But we continue to produce, so that's how we're looking at 2026 cadence.

Q: Super helpful. And if I could ask a second question on SciTech. You know, you called out the FORGE program. And look, this is the first time in 50 years that the U.S. federal government selected a new prime contractor for missile warning ground systems. This seems like a pretty big deal. So can you talk about the importance of this program and also with the operation we're seeing in Iran and the threat environment? We see acceleration. of what you're providing in 2026 to the government on this program? And also, you know, when we think about the revenue outlook for 2026, what has to occur? You know, what's driving the difference between the low end and the high end? You know, what's the variables we should be watching?

A: Thanks, Christine. I'll get started and pass it to Darren later. But what I would say, yes, you're absolutely right. FORGE is incredibly important, consequential, program of record and SciTech is not a stranger to these kind of things. They've been supporting these type of missile defense agency and Space Force and Air Force programs for 40 plus years. And so they have a library of algorithms that you can mix and match that continue to get modernized and advanced. In this case, Forge does use AI and it allows you to force multiply each operator in the room and so the 11th space wing is actually using this operational system today and it is supporting 24 7 365 operations for conflicts such as an iran so it's really important i would say that it is the most advanced missile warning missile tracking system out there processing high rate, high volume of data from all the low Earth orbit, medium Earth orbit that are coming online, and geosynchronous orbit, missile warning and missile tracking, OPIR satellites. And it's really helping我们 defend our homeland. So I would say that there's a lot of upside opportunities to continue to add on to the program. As we mentioned, there was a hardware purchase that I'll let Darren, talk a little bit more about. Yeah. Hey, Christine. This is Darren. So heading into, I mean, you've seen the Q4 numbers. That gives us a great deal of momentum from a revenue perspective going into 2026. I mean, as I mentioned to Sheila, out of our midpoint guidance number, 80% of that is already booked. So we feel pretty good about the guidance number. And I mean, as... And as we ramp up the alpha launches, that'll stabilize that number. But from an upside potential perspective, one thing that's noteworthy is we do have significant potential upside opportunities, and we're well positioned for that. For example, as Jason discussed on the call, NASA's need to accelerate landers to a monthly cadence starting in 2027. That's not included in our numbers today.

Q: Hi, Jason. Hi, Darren. Apologies for any background noise here. But you talked about NASA wanting to push the cadence of lunar missions. I'm curious how you think about Firefly's ability to support an accelerated cadence of lunar missions versus what you've currently talked about.

A: Yeah, thanks, Suji. This is Jason. Yeah, we have been investing in CAPEX as well as expansion of our clean rooms as well as our in-house avionics and batteries and integration and test facilities here in Cedar Park, Texas. We just had some of the senior NASA top executives tour our facilities. And what we showed them was we're doing operations on Blue Ghost Mission 2. There's a lot of hardware. being integrated as we speak, a lot of welding going on for both the lander as well as the electric transfer vehicle. We have all the payloads as well for Blue Ghost Mission 2, but we're also achieving milestones on Blue Ghost Mission 3 passing PDR and Blue Ghost Mission 4 passing SRR. With the expansion, we've been able to increase our clean room space thanks to the Texas Space Commission that gave us a grant last year. And so we're completing that this year. That will allow us to ramp up steadily the number of lunar landers we can build simultaneously. So when we hear the NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, say, hey, we want to go to the Moon South Pole with robotic missions every month starting in 2027, those are just validation of the investments we've already made. A lot of our designs are scalable and modular so that we can continue to take advantage of the streamline of building and integrating these lunar landers at rate. We also are able to get strategic inventory as well to help us with our suppliers. I'll pass it on to Darren. I think you summarized it well, Jason. I mean, investment in the ramping up production for spacecraft. That's good. And then my follow-up maybe is for Darren. Can you talk perhaps about the revenue per lunar mission trend we should be expecting? Is it fairly steady from IAM mission to IAM mission, or is there a way that it would be ramping up over the next few?

A: Yeah, so our Blue Ghost missions, with every Eclipse win that we've had, has been ramping up. As you recall, the first Blue Ghost mission was roughly $100 million, and they've been steadily ramping up to in the $150 to $200 million range with potential add-ons as well, like, as Jason mentioned, with Ocula and, you know, data sales with the imaging services that we've gotten.

Q: Hey, good afternoon. I wanted to ask on Alpha, given the data you got back from Flight 7 and the improvements that you previously made on its TPS, are you expecting the thicker thermal protection to be able to fly at more stressful inclinations on future launches, or do you foresee any other changes to Alpha's TPS going forward?

A: Hey, Michael, this is Jason. Thanks for that question. Everything that I've seen to date has looked nominal. We'll continue to go through all the data that we received. We actually put additional telemetry on the first stage so that we could get the temperature protection system sensors that we put on as an addition so we could validate everything that we learned from our prior launches. So we'll be able to share more as we get all that data and crunch all that data. But we're very confident that the minimal additions of thermal protection system on our stage one booster gives us the ability to envelope even more types of launch trajectories going forward.

Q: And then on SciTech, are there any additional contracts there that you're competing for that could potentially be, you know, step changes to the growth that you're already expecting for SciTech?

A: Yeah, for SciTech, you know, I've already mentioned that they have the program of record for missile warning, missile tracking processing with the U.S. Space Force Forge Program. The Space Development Agency also has them on contract to support tracking tranche one ground processing as well. I think that there definitely are other types of competitions out there, especially in the multi-domain arena. So things like air battle management system and in addition to missile warning, missile tracking, all the algorithms that SciTech have are transferable to missions like air moving target indication and potentially ground moving target indication. Those are upside opportunities for SciTech. In addition, I already mentioned that SciTech is very well positioned because of their 40 plus years of missile tracking and missile defense algorithm work that is in operations, such as FORGE, for things like the Golden Dome program, which is now we hear $185 billion opportunity. And if you look at that opportunity, the most important thing for that architecture to succeed is the ground processing, integration of sensor data to decision making, things like fire control. So, SciTech is very well positioned for those kinds of missions.

Q: Hey, thanks for the question. Do you mind talking perhaps about FY27's National Defense Strategy kind of the increased focus on satellite-based architectures and what it implies for both intelligence and orbital – intelligence satellite and orbital transfer vehicle demand. Like, essentially, how much are you hearing from acquisition officers that they're going to expand beyond kind of like two and three supplier programs to a broader set of acquisition partners?

A: Hi, Colin. This is Jason. Thanks for that question. We are very – very bullish and committed to the National Defense Strategy for this year and beyond. We have a contract with the Defense Innovation Unit called CineQuan Project, and in that one we are developing, we just passed our CDR, we're developing a rendezvous proximity operations capability with our satellite Elettra, which is able to do dynamic space operations and carry different types of space domain awareness type sensors and other, we see a future where space will not be sedentary. You will have to have dynamic space operations capabilities to either evade threats or even chase after threats. And Electra is well positioned for those kind of missions because it's got a lot of maneuverability and precise in-house engine thrusting based on heritage from our Blue Ghost mission. It also has a lot of ample fuel capacity, and we're building a lot of autonomy into this system as well. So it really does support things like rendezvous proximity operations and space domain awareness and adjacent kind of missions. And LEO can support MEO and GEO as well as cislitter missions as well. And then in addition to that, We do see that there will be a lot more demand for missile warning, missile tracking sensors and satellite processors. SciTech has a lot of capability because of FORGE on how to process large amounts of data and turn it into good track quality. They also have experience doing onboard processing on orbit. And so we are investing in that capability so that we can enable more on orbit edge processing so you can further reduce latencies from sensing to the actual warp by decision making got it and in terms of the customer conversations that you're having um to what extent is the like additional side tech capability essentially like forcing them or not forcing them but um giving them increased confidence in pushing Firefly towards doing hard intelligent satellite work? Essentially, if you had to put a rough timeline on it, would 2030 kind of be fair to characterize as Firefly looking a lot like kind of Millennium five years ago?

A: I can't speak to other places that I've led before, but what I could say is that the capabilities that Firefly plus SciTech brings to the table are are very advanced. As I said before, space is hard, but landing on the moon is even harder, and we were the first and only commercial company to do that successfully, stable and upright. If you think about it, we rendezvoused successfully with the moon, and we were able to conduct the 14-day operations with 10 different NASA payloads successfully. And so all those lessons learned, also shared with our Electra spacecraft, make for a really powerful capability that can perform things like RPO and space domain awareness, as well as long-haul resilient communications missions and transfer vehicle missions as well. But the addition of SciTech brings a lot of best practices for software development. existing algorithms to process any type of sensor phenomenology because SciTech does have the sensor phenomenology subject matter experts with the software developers. And they have a lot of secure software development practices that we can transfer between our spacecraft and our SciTech programs. So it does really give us a lot more capability synergies, if you will, to go after these type of no-fail critical missions that need to also be affordable in advance.

Q: Hey, this is Laura for Edison. Thanks for taking my question. So first question I want to ask, do you have any preliminary thoughts on the Space Data Center opportunities? Are those like technically or economically feasible, or do you see this as a potential area of interest for FYFLI?

A: Thanks, Laura. This is Jason. Appreciate the question. Long before there was a renewed interest in space-based data centers, Firefly has been envisioning a future of processing more and more in space because there's a lot of advantages of doing that. To name a few, there's a lot of power generation and a lot of thermal radiator capabilities in space, not to mention you reduce latency if you are able to sense things and process things on orbit and get it directly to the users efficiently. One of the main reasons our SciTech acquisition was so strategic is because we were putting the pieces together to enable such a system. And so with SciTech's capabilities of working with software applications on frameworks on They have a lot of knowledge that we can apply to on-orbit data centers as well. If you think about it, on-orbit data centers are really the hardware and physical layers and the frameworks. But what do you put on that? Well, we have SciTech who has the software applications that you actually put on the Oracle data centers. So that's what we're going to work closely with our subsidiary SciTech on. And we'll be able to, for example, connect different orbital constellations together so that we can enable enhanced collection opportunities by having LEO and MEO and GEO satellites collaborating with each other like they have never done before. So there's a lot of upside opportunities with the things we're doing with SciTech and our electric spacecraft.

Q: Yeah, good afternoon, guys. This is Alex on for Seth. Now, maybe one area we haven't talked quite as much about on this call is on Eclipse. I know you guys kind of mentioned some updates on you guys are progressing towards delivering the first stage to Northrop later this year, and the first flight is kind of targeted for no earlier than 2027. Just curious if you guys could kind of walk us through some of the milestones we should be looking for there over the next several months.

A: Yeah, I'll get started. Darren can add more. This is Jason. We're really excited about Eclipse. Everything that we've learned and we're producing on Alpha to include our carbon composite structures and our tap-off cycle engine technology is reducing risk for Eclipse. And so we didn't have to start from scratch with developing our engine technology. We were able to scale it in terms of size for our tap-off cycle engines. And then the carbon composite structures, we've been using the automated fiber placement machine already since 2023 when it was stood up in our Texas factory. So we have a lot of experience building the tanks and structures and domes and LOX transfer lines using our proven techniques. And then every different element of the Eclipse program is either in development or in build or test. So we're really excited about the progress we're making. We have over 100 hot fire Miranda engines under our belt. In fact, I was just at Rocket Ranch and experienced two in a day. And then on top of that, we are already building the flight engines for the inaugural launch as well. of our Miranda engines. The first stage tank is making a lot of progress. We did test out the inner stage, past qualification there. We also tested our LOX transfer line. That is a significant progress there. So all the testing is happening. We're still targeting delivering the first stage to our co-developer, Northrop Grumman, towards the end of the year. And then for The full variant of Eclipse, where Firefly builds the first stage and the second stage, we're anticipating no earlier than 2027 for that first launch