Firefly Aerospace

Firefly Aerospace is an end-to-end space transportation company developing technology for launching, landing, and operating space missions. The company is developing small- to medium-lift launch vehicles, lunar landers, and orbital vehicles for government and commercial customers, utilizing carbon composite structures, patented propulsion technologies, and common components.

Firefly's mission is to provide affordable and reliable access to space. It plans to offer the following:

• LEO launch, deorbit, and reentry services
• In-space mobility, logistics, and payload hosting in GEO
• Lunar deliveries, sample return, and relay services in cislunar space
• Transport services to nearby planets such as Mars and Venus

Firefly's intended services with the MLV and Alpha launch vehicles and Elytra and Blue Ghost spacecraft.

Firefly Aerospace was formed after the dissolution of Firefly Space Systems in 2017. The company's intellectual property was bought by Max Polyakov of Noosphere Ventures and relaunched as Firefly Aerospace. Firefly Space Systems was a startup focusing on the design and production of aerospace launch vehicles. After financial problems in 2016, Firefly Space Systems' assets and intellectual property were acquired by Noosphere Ventures for an undisclosed amount of money on March 16, 2017, in an auction in Menlo Park, California announced by EOS Launcher.

Headquartered in Cedar Park, Texas, Firefly Aerospace has grown to nearly 700 employees. The company has performed test launches of its vehicles and launches for NASA and Lockheed Martin. Firefly has plans for upcoming missions, including two lunar missions with NASA utilizing its Blue Ghost lander.

Alpha is a launch vehicle developed by Firefly for commercial, civil, and national security missions. The company states that Alpha aims to provide affordable, responsive, and reliable launch services with the "lowest cost per kilogram to orbit." The launch vehicle is manufactured in the USA, using a patented tap-off engine cycle with fewer parts compared to staged combustion or gas generator cycles. Alpha's entire airframe and cryogenic propellant tanks utilize carbon composite technologies.

Alpha uses LOX / RP-1 propellant and a turbopump propellant feed. A two-stage vehicle, stage 1 is powered by four Reaver engines offering 801kN of thrust, and stage 2 uses a single Lightning engine offering 70.1kN of thrust. Alpha offers a payload mass of 1030kg for low Earth orbit (LEO) at 300km and 630kg for sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) at 500km. Alpha is 96.7ft (29.48m) tall. The payload fairing height and diameter are 16.4ft (5m) and 7.2ft (2.2m), respectively.

Firefly offers flexible launch options via dedicated facilities in California and Florida. The company can launch, deploy, and service satellites in orbit, launching with 24-hour notice. Alpha can be paired with the company's Elytra vehicle to support in-orbit missions post-launch relocation, space domain awareness, and de-orbiting services.

Alpha launch vehicle capabilities were demonstrated in two test missions in 2021 and 2022 (Dream and To the Black, respectively) from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. In 2023, Alpha rockets were used in a responsive space demonstration for the Space Force and a commercial launch for Lockheed Martin.

The company states that Alpha rockets will be used in the upcoming Elytra Mission 1, planned for 2024, and the NASA Elana 43 launch.

The medium launch vehicle (MLV) is being co-developed by Firefly and Northrop Grumman to serve the medium-lift market. MLV will carry over 16,000kg to LEO, serving commercial, civil, national security, and international launch markets. Manufacturing and testing aims to be complete for the first flight to take place in 2025. MLV will initially launch from Virginia’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) on Wallops Island and is designed to be compatible with launch ranges on the East and West Coast of America.

MLV is a successor to the Alpha and Antares (developed by Northrop Grumman) launch vehicles. It retains flight-proven systems from the Antares program with upgrades, including a vacuum-based liquid second stage and an industry-standard 5 m-class fairing that’s customizable to support customer requirements. It also utilizes technologies from the flight-proven Alpha vehicle, including patented tap-off cycle propulsion technology and carbon composite sandwich structures to reduce mass.

MLV has a 2-stage architecture with an overall length of 183.7ft (55.7m) and a payload fairing of 5.2m. It utilizes LOX / RP-1 propellant and a turbopump feed system into the tap-off cycle combustion engine. Stage 1 provides 7,161kN of thrust via seven Miranda engines, and stage 2 provides 890kN thrust with a single Miranda vacuum.

Blue Ghost is Firefly's under-development lunar lander intended to perform annual missions to the moon with payload services customized to the goals of each customer. This includes both rideshare opportunities and dedicated missions. Firefly states that Blue Ghost will have the capabilities to deliver and host payloads anywhere on the lunar surface, and when paired with Firefly’s medium launch and orbital vehicles, the lander supports end-to-end cislunar services, including those below:

• Lunar launch services
• Lunar delivery and operations
• Lunar orbit services
• Custom cislunar solutions

Blue Ghost specfications.

Through the NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, Firefly has two current task orders for Blue Ghost missions to the Moon in 2024 and 2026, totaling more than $200M in awards.

Elytra is Firefly's line of mobile and scalable orbital vehicles for on-orbit transfers, hosting, delivery, and servicing across cislunar space and beyond. The vehicles are part of the company's end-to-end space transportation services available to launch on Alpha dn MLV, serving government and commercial missions. Firefly offers three versions of Elytra vehicles that can be customized based on customer needs:

• Elytra Dawn—for on-orbit hosting, rideshare, and delivery in LEO
• Elytra Dusk—on-orbit tasking and mobility from LEO to GEO
• Elytra Dark—for larger, more advanced on-orbit missions from LEO to GEO, including enhanced maneuverability, power, and autonomy