Firefly Aerospace Inc. Common Stock 2026 Q2 Earnings Call

Hello there. I'm Michael Sheetz, and welcome to Firefly's second quarter financial results call. I'm pleased to be joined on the call by CEO Jason Kim and CFO Darren Ma as we report for the period ending June 30, 2026. Today's call will include forward-looking statements, including but not limited to statements the company will make about its future financial and operating performance, growth strategy, and market outlook. Actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by these forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause the actual results and trends to differ materially are set forth in our annual and quarterly reports filed with the SEC. Firefly assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements which speak only as of their respective dates. Also in this call, we will discuss both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures.

A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in the second quarter 2026 earnings release. Unless otherwise stated, financial information referenced in this call will be non-GAAP. Our earnings press release, SEC filings, and a replay of today's call can be found on our investor relations website at investors.fireflyspace.com. Now, I'll turn the call over to Jason.

Thank you, Michael, and welcome to our second quarter 2026 earnings call. Firefly's first quarter surpassing $100 million comes in just our ninth year as a business, pairing record-breaking revenue with our history-making programs. Halfway through the year, the momentum we started with is building across our entire company, bolstered by multiple flagship contract wins and operational milestones achieved on our revenue-generating Blue Ghost, Elytra, Alpha, Eclipse, FORGE, and Golden Dome programs, as well as the recent acquisition of Space-ng. Our second quarter contract wins drove our backlog to a record total of $1.5 billion, further supporting our long-term growth trajectory. Our strategic investments to increase spacecraft production capacity are timely given the latest round of NASA moon-based contract awards for both Blue Ghost and Elytra.

To showcase our expanded 144,000 sq ft spacecraft campus, my team and I hosted NASA's Moon Base lead, Carlos García-Galán, for a tour of landers, transfer vehicles, vertically integrated manufacturing, and our mission operations center. After seeing our end-to-end capabilities, Carlos shared that our recent MoonFall program award is not only important for space exploration, it is also important for national security as future missions could collaborate with the Space Force. Our capabilities are inherently dual use, such as our Ocula imaging and mapping service, so we embrace this call to action. We will continue to find ways to synergize between NASA and the Space Force to force multiply their investments toward a common strategic goal of securing the ultimate high ground.

As demonstrated by our recent track record of landing and surface operations as well as contract awards, the spacecraft we are building will deliver and support many of the capabilities needed to enable a permanent presence on the Moon. Our lunar contracts constitute a revenue-generating flywheel with NASA as the base customer and additional bolt-on contracts from a diverse set of commercial and international customers. Additionally, space is a national security priority, as shown by significant year-over-year increases in the U.S. Space Force budget, major conflicts around the world, and evolving missile threats. Market signals from customers point to orbital launch only getting more supply-constrained. Demand for government and commercial constellations and missions outstrips the rocket capacity available both in the U.S. and globally. Moon Base, national security, Golden Dome, and assured access to launch are driving significant industry tailwinds for space.

Firefly is addressing those pressing needs with the advancement of our technology, scaling of our product lines, and development and training of our workforce. Space is accelerating, and Firefly is accelerating with it. For those new to Firefly, and as a reminder for others, we are a space and defense company delivering innovative hardware and software to perform the hardest missions in space for national security, exploration, and commercial technology. Our hardware is represented by our spacecraft, the Blue Ghost lunar landers and Elytra satellite orbiters, and our launch vehicles, the small lift Alpha and medium lift Eclipse. Our spacecraft solutions platform also includes our software portfolio of AI-enabled operators, which are proven in national security operations, as well as autonomous guidance navigation systems.

The industry tailwinds behind artificial intelligence, data centers, and autonomy are fueling operational realities for our company as we deliver crucial no-fail systems in support of the U.S. and our allies. We have co-located vertically integrated infrastructure within a 25-mile radius near Austin, Texas. This is where we develop and build our own carbon composite structures, in-house patented engine technology, and software autonomy for all of our products. We are obsessively focused on prioritizing safety, quality, and reliability as we scale up our hardware and software product deliveries for our national security, space exploration, and commercial customers. Now turning to our business updates. In the second quarter, we completed new milestones across each of our product lines and services while also engaging with our top customers.

As the leading lunar company, we are proud to have won our fifth and sixth moon mission contracts during the second quarter, adding two more missions for delivery in 2028. During the second quarter, NASA awarded us with another Commercial Lunar Payload Services contract for an accelerated Blue Ghost lander mission to the Moon. The primary goal of this mission is to demonstrate repeatable access to the lunar surface on an accelerated timeline, executing the mission half the time of our first landing. This increases our target from one annual lunar landing to multiple per year. NASA's contract represents a near build-to-print lander design to enable faster production cycles and template our successful Blue Ghost into a production line vehicle. For our next lunar mission that is landing on the far side of the Moon, we completed assembly of the Blue Ghost lander's main structural and fluid components.

We are now integrating the avionics and payloads as we prepare to stack the lander on top of our Elytra spacecraft. All of our primary structures have passed acceptance testing for our far side mission, while our flight proven Spectre engines are undergoing acceptance testing and preparation for integration. All the mission payloads have been delivered as well. We are currently anticipating Riders to the Dark will launch early next year, pending delivery of our spacecraft to Florida and confirmation of a launch window. Similar to our first mission, we will have one-week windows each month to ensure we arrive at the surface for the beginning of lunar day. Riders to the Dark will showcase one of the most complex multi-stage missions to the Moon to date.

The full spacecraft stack is 22 feet tall, consisting of our lander on top, the European Space Agency Lunar Pathfinder satellite in the middle, and our Elytra spacecraft at the bottom. Elytra will serve as a long-haul communications relay orbiter and host our commercial Ocula imaging and mapping service. We are proud to support both commercial and international payloads. Our far side mission carries payloads representing the U.S., Australia, Canada, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. Additionally, we acquired Space-ng, a leader in AI-powered vision navigation and autonomous guidance systems, further adding to Firefly's vertical integration. They bring proven spacecraft software and camera hardware for Blue Ghost and Elytra, bolstering our capabilities to advance the future of autonomous space operations. Firefly is partnering with Benchmark Space Systems on their recent selection for the DARPA LASSO program.

We will help the mission operate safely and persistently in very low lunar orbit, utilizing our newly acquired Space-ng team and their vision navigation hardware and software. The software from our new acquisition was proven on Blue Ghost Mission 1, when it performed autonomous hazard avoidance and navigation in the last hour to ensure we safely and softly landed on the Moon's surface. Work on Blue Ghost Mission 2 to the Gruithuisen Domes is well underway as the team completed the critical design review with our customer during the second quarter. This milestone progressed development of the spacecraft as we march towards this historic mission to the silica-rich volcanic features of the Moon, where humanity has never explored. Our rover subcontractor, Blue Origin, recently passed its critical design review, unlocking the flight build toward delivery to Firefly.

Likewise, on Blue Ghost South Pole mission, we completed the preliminary design review to verify the vehicle's design before production begins. We continue to expand our spacecraft capabilities, both in infrastructure and technologies. During the second quarter, we expanded our Cedar Park campus, adding a new headquarters that is closer to our spacecraft facilities. We are more than quadrupling our spacecraft clean room space, thanks to our grant from the Texas Space Commission. We added our Gloworks Innovation Lab to support accelerated research and development without any disruption to our mature production lines. We are also looking ahead toward larger lander designs, which are maturing. We have submitted our proposal for the $6 billion CLPS 2.0 program and look forward to competing for opportunities to support the increased payload mass and volume needed to build moon-based infrastructure.

Moving to Elytra, in the second quarter, Firefly won a new flagship role, MoonFall. We are proud to support this high-priority mission for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory under a $75 million subcontract for Elytra to deliver flying JPL drones to the Moon's South Pole in 2028. We have a robust working relationship with JPL from our Blue Ghost missions and are eager to collaborate further as we dare mighty things together. There is key national security interest in Elytra as well. Building upon the way we are using Elytra to carry our landers and support MoonFall, the Space Force has come out with a pressing request for information about fast transfer vehicles. These spacecraft could take critical national security small satellite payloads from GTO to GEO on diverse launch vehicles on a recurring basis. Elytra is uniquely suited to service this type of upside opportunity.