Description
Firefly Aerospace is an American private aerospace firm based in Austin, Texas, that develops small- and medium[not verified in body]-sized launch vehicles for commercial launches to orbit. They are proponents of NewSpace: a movement in the aerospace industry whose objective is to increase access to space through innovative technical advances resulting in a reduction of launch cost and the lessening of regulations and logistical restrictions associated with dependence on national space institutions.
The company was formed when former Firefly Space Systems assets were acquired by EOS Launcher in March 2017, which was then renamed Firefly Aerospace. Firefly Aerospace is wholly owned by Noosphere Ventures, the strategic venture arm of Noosphere Global. Firefly Aerospace is now working on the Alpha 2.0 launch vehicle which has a significantly larger payload capability than the previous Alpha developed by Firefly Space Systems. It aims to place a 1000 kg payload into a low Earth orbit (LEO) and 600 kg into a Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO). The restructured company has about 350 employees as of January 2021.
Firefly Aerospace was awarded a US$93.3 million contract by NASA to deliver 10 scientific experiments and technology demonstrations to the lunar surface as part of the Artemis program in 2023. The Blue Ghost lunar lander will carry instruments to study several aspects of the lunar surface in preparation for future human missions to the moon.
