Firefly is a space transportation company developing launch vehicles that can take satellites from the surface of the earth into orbit. They are also developing space utility vehicles to transport satellites in space as well as a lander to transport material to other extraterrestrial bodies. They launched their first rocket in 2021. Their rocket design is the largest all-carbon composite in the world. Both stages of their rockets use liquid oxygen and refined kerosene. This is the current propellant that the current Antares program uses.

Firefly has facilities in Texas, California, and Florida. Currently they are upgrading their rocket to the next tier of cargo capacity, and have also won a contract from NASA to build a moon lander. The cost per kilogram is $15000 to low earth orbit. For comparison, SpaceX is about $5600 per kilogram, but Firefly is much cheaper than other alternatives such as Virgin or Rocketlabs.

The lander is an exciting project – it could potentially elevate Firefly as a company toward position similar to SpaceX. There are over a hundred companies companies right now trying to build small launch vehicles. Maybe 6-10 are making significant progress. There are 3 companies that have launch vehicles on the pad – Firefly, ABS, and Relativity. Everyone is trying to launch in September, there’s an exciting mini space race going on between these organizations.

The keys to space right now are the rockets. Having their own launch capability means Firefly can have vertical integration to develop and deploy utility vehicles and landers to orbit, and have all the costs maintained in-house.

If you need satellites that you want to get to orbit, or know about great talent that is looking to get into the space industry, contact Firefly.