Firefly Aerospace — the one that landed on the Moon commercially
Cedar Park, Texas headquartered. Nasdaq-listed (FLY). Operates the Alpha small-lift rocket, the Blue Ghost lunar lander programme, the Elytra orbital transfer vehicle, and the Eclipse medium-lift launcher developed jointly with Northrop Grumman. Blue Ghost Mission 1 landed at Mare Crisium on 2 March 2025 — the first commercial spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon and operate through a full lunar day, and the recipient of the 2025 Collier Trophy.
The Alpha era
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Firefly Aerospace was reformed in 2017 in Cedar Park, Texas. Its first product, Alpha, is a two-stage small-lift launcher burning liquid oxygen and kerosene, with four Firefly-designed Reaver engines on the first stage and a single vacuum-optimised Lightning engine on the second. Payload capability is up to 1,030 kg to low-Earth orbit.
Alpha flies from Space Launch Complex 2W at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, with an East-coast pad at NASA Wallops in development.
The Alpha record
Alpha's maiden flight (DREAM) on 2 September 2021 did not reach orbit. The second flight (To The Black) on 1 October 2022 was Firefly's first orbital success.
On 14 September 2023, Alpha flew the VICTUS NOX tactically-responsive space mission for the US Space Force — from formal call-up to launch in 27 hours. Later flights delivered payloads for NASA and Lockheed Martin, with some upper-stage performance shortfalls resulting in off-nominal orbits on two missions.
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Blue Ghost — the lunar landing
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Blue Ghost Mission 1 launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Kennedy Space Center on 15 January 2025, spent 45 days transiting to the Moon, and soft-landed at Mons Latreille in Mare Crisium on 2 March 2025. It was the first commercial spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon and operate through a full lunar day.
The lander carried 10 NASA science and technology payloads under the agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services programme, and operated on the surface for approximately 14 Earth days — one lunar day — completing science before entering the lunar night.
The National Aeronautic Association awarded Firefly the 2025 Robert J. Collier Trophy for the mission. A second Blue Ghost mission, targeting a far-side landing, is planned for 2026 / 2027.
Miranda, Eclipse, and Elytra
The Miranda engine is a Firefly-designed oxidiser-rich staged-combustion engine burning liquid oxygen and kerosene, delivering approximately 230,000 lbf of sea-level thrust. It powers two vehicles: Firefly's own Eclipse medium-lift launcher (seven Miranda engines on the first stage; up to 16,000 kg to LEO), developed jointly with Northrop Grumman and targeted for first flight in 2026 or 2027; and the first stage of Northrop Grumman's Antares 330 — the US-engine successor to Antares 230+, whose Russian-made RD-181 first stage was phased out.
Separately, Elytra is Firefly's orbital transfer vehicle and hosted-payload platform — providing propulsion, power, and communications for satellites and hosted payloads on-orbit.
The commercial and defence layers
Firefly listed on the Nasdaq (ticker FLY) in 2025. First-quarter 2026 revenue was $80.9 million, up roughly 40 % quarter-over-quarter; full-year 2026 guidance is $420–450 million.
Firefly's SciTec subsidiary provides missile-warning sensor-data processing to the US Space Force under the FORGE (Future Operationally Resilient Ground Evolution) programme. In late 2025, SciTec received a $109 million engineering change proposal for FORGE expansion linked to the Golden Dome missile-defence initiative.