Firefly Plans Alpha Pad Return For Lockheed Martin Demo By Early 2026

Firefly Aerospace intends to make a second attempt to launch the seventh mission of its Alpha rocket by early next calendar year, after losing the original first-stage booster for the mission during preflight testing in September, CEO Jason Kim said in a Nov. 12 earnings call.

The company has determined that a process error during stage-one integration resulted in a “minute hydrocarbon contamination,” leading to a combustion event in one of the booster’s engines during ground testing, Kim said. The Sept. 29 incident occurred at the company’s Briggs, Texas, facility ahead of a planned launch of a Lockheed Martin technology demonstration satellite from Vandenberg SFB, California.

The test stand remained intact after the mishap and is being upgraded, as the company prepares to ship the next Alpha booster from its production line ahead of the new launch date between late 2025 and early 2026, Kim said. Alpha’s second stage is at the launch site.

Proper safety protocols were followed and personnel were deemed safe, he said. Firefly implemented corrective measures, including increasing inspection requirements for the fluid systems.

The FLTA007 mission was procured under a June 2024 agreement between Lockheed Martin and Firefly for 25 Alpha flights. During another flight under that agreement, FLTA006 on April 29, the Alpha rocket suffered a mishap during first-stage separation that led to the loss of the Lockheed Martin LM 400 payload.

Past FLTA007, Firefly is “still assessing” launch plans for 2026, Kim said. “Our plans are, we get a good flight up, get the post data, and continue production” of Alpha, he said. The company is contracted to support a tactically responsive space mission for the U.S. Space Force called Victus Haze. The mission was due to launch by fall 2025, but service leaders have confirmed its delay to allow time to assess lessons learned from the Sept. 29 Alpha booster anomaly.

Heading into 2026, Firefly is ramping up development of its Blue Ghost lunar lander after completing its first mission earlier this year, when it landed successfully on the Moon and completed 14 days of surface operations under NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. Firefly has four additional Blue Ghost missions in the pipeline, with the next mission due to launch next year.

Firefly reported third-quarter revenue of $30.8 million, up from $22.4 million in the year-earlier period. Just under 70% of that revenue, or $21.4 million, came from spacecraft-related sales. Chief Financial Officer Darren Ma, on the call, said a $10 million NASA contract for additional data from the recent Blue Ghost Mission One and progress ahead of Blue Ghost Mission Two drove those sales, along with the development and ramp-up of a Defense Innovation Unit-sponsored program using Firefly’s Elytra maneuverable orbital vehicle, due to launch in 2027."

Firefly ended the quarter with a total backlog of approximately $1.3 billion, up from $1.1 billion at the end of the second quarter, Ma said.

The company is eyeing international opportunities, starting with Japan’s space markets. In August, it signed an agreement with spaceport operator Space Cotan to study potential launches from a new commercial site in Hokkaido, which would offer launchpad flexibility, strategic orbital access, and the ability to tap into Japan’s satellite industry, Kim said.

Firefly closed on its strategic acquisition of defense technology company SciTec on Nov. 5, purchasing the company for $855 million, including $300 million in cash. Kim called the acquisition critical for the company’s ambitions to support the Trump administration’s Golden Dome for America missile defense architecture, adding critical data processing capabilities for fire control and ground systems.

As a new subsidiary under Firefly, SciTec will also bring classified data processing systems into the company fold, Kim said. The Space Force tapped SciTec for its Future Operationally Resilient Ground Evolution (FORGE) Processing system to support daily operations and command and control of missile warning/missile tracking satellites.

While details about Golden Dome remain scarce, Kim said the Pentagon wants to look at commercial technology first “as a default.”

“We’ve been in communications with the Golden Dome customers in terms of Alpha rockets ... to support test targets for the space-based interceptors,” he said. Firefly is also eyeing hypersonic target testing under Golden Dome, and wants to use SciTec’s products for both space- and ground-based elements of the proposed architecture, he said.