Firefly Aerospace (FLY -1.30%) is doing a lot more than launching rockets. The company is actually building an entire space transportation business around four major platforms: its Alpha rocket, Blue Ghost lunar lander, Elytra orbital vehicle, and the larger Eclipse rocket being developed with Northrop Grumman. And the numbers indicate Firefly is no slouch.
Q2 revenue reached a record $117.7 million, up 659% year over year, and management expects between $420 million and $450 million in revenue for 2026. Firefly also picked up more than half a dozen contracts during the quarter.
To the moon!
Image source: Getty Images.
Firefly became the first commercial space company to successfully land on the moon, and it now has six contracted lunar missions. A recent $144 million NASA contract added another Blue Ghost mission, while a separate $75 million subcontract will use Firefly's Elytra spacecraft to deliver four drones to the moon's south pole.
NASDAQ: FLY
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The company is also expanding production capacity. Its new Texas cleanroom is designed to increase production of Blue Ghost and Elytra spacecraft, and it's developing a larger lunar lander capable of carrying heavier cargo, vehicles, infrastructure, and power systems to the moon.
Then there's defense. Firefly subsidiary SciTec recently won a $94 million Space Force contract, while Elytra is being developed for missions including satellite delivery, surveillance, communications, and even the removal of old satellites from orbit.
Of course, Firefly isn't a risk-free investment. The company lost $92.3 million in Q2, and developing rockets and spacecraft requires enormous amounts of capital. But Firefly doesn't need to be as big as Space Exploration Technologies or RocketLab to build a valuable business. It just needs to capture a piece of the growing market for launches, lunar missions, orbital services, and national-security space infrastructure.
With revenue accelerating and several major platforms moving deeper into production, Firefly is becoming much more than another speculative rocket company.
