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Firefly Aerospace Inc. (FLY)

Q3 2025 Earnings Call· Wed, Nov 12, 2025

$32.70

-4.43%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the Firefly Aerospace Inc. third quarter 2025 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal remarks. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Michael Sheetz, Firefly Director of Investor Relations. Michael, you may begin.

Michael Sheetz

Management

Thank you, operator. Hello there. I'm Michael Sheetz, and welcome to Firefly Aerospace Inc.'s third 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 September 30, 2025. 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 the annual and quarterly reports filed with the SEC. Firefly Aerospace Inc. 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 third quarter 2025 filing. Unless otherwise stated, financial information referred 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.

Jason Kim

CEO

Thank you, Michael, and welcome to our third quarter 2025 earnings call. As yesterday was Veterans Day, I want to kick off today's call by thanking our country's service members for their dedication, courage, and sacrifices in serving our nation. Ensuring we remain the home of the free in the land of the brave, Firefly Aerospace Inc. proudly employs many veterans like myself. And we are honored to continue to serve as we work critical national security missions supporting our warfighters. Firefly Aerospace Inc. is a space and defense company delivering innovative hardware and software to perform the hardest missions in space for national security, exploration, and commercial technology. Built to keep America as the leader in space while inspiring the world. Our hardware is represented by four revenue-generating products: our small lift Alpha rocket, medium lift Eclipse rocket, Blue Ghost lunar lander, and Electra satellite orbiter. These hardware products have a robust backlog of $1.3 billion at the end of quarter three. Our software offerings come through our recent strategic acquisition of SciTech. These capabilities include AI-enabled defense software proven in operations, including missile warning and defense, intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, space domain awareness, remote sensing and analysis, and autonomous command and control to support diverse spacecraft missions. Firefly Aerospace Inc.'s product suite is strategically tailored to support the growing opportunities in space. Every day, there are new industry tailwinds for the space sector: artificial intelligence development, data center expansion, and an intensifying focus on the strategic and economic benefits of the moon. In addition, we have seen a major shift on defense funding and priorities supporting Golden Dome, with $175 billion planned for the program over three years. We are positioned to meet the call from the secretary of war in his arsenal of freedom address, where he…

Darren Ma

CFO

Thank you, Jason, and good afternoon, everyone. In today's call, I'm going to review the SciTech acquisition, which recently closed, discuss our third quarter financial results, and provide our revenue outlook for the remainder of 2025. I would like to thank the teams from both Firefly Aerospace Inc. and SciTech for the incredible dedication and laser focus on completing this transaction in just a month after announcing the proposed deal. As we noted at the time of the transaction announcement on October 5, the purchase price of approximately $855 million included a combination of $300 million in cash, 11.1 million shares of our common stock at $50 per share. Recently, we upsized our revolving credit facility to $260 million from $125 million. For the cash portion, we used $40 million from our cash balances with the remaining amount coming from our recently upsized revolving credit facility. After careful analysis, we concluded increasing our revolver and minimizing cash usage was the most prudent way to maintain our fortress-like balance sheet that we will leverage to drive our growth objectives. Before reviewing our third quarter performance, I want to reemphasize that operational metrics drive Firefly Aerospace Inc.'s financial performance. Key operational metrics include the number of launches and execution on program milestones across both our spacecraft solutions and launch businesses. Specifically, in our spacecraft solutions business, which will include SciTech going forward, we recognize revenue as a percentage of completion under each contract. For the launch business, we focus on the number of launches, Revenue for our operational Alpha vehicle is recognized at a point in time when the launch occurs. For Eclipse, while in development, we recognize revenue as a percentage of completion based on program milestones as part of the Northrop Grumman partnership. Once the Eclipse vehicle is operational, we…

Jason Kim

CEO

Thank you, Darren. Since the end of the third quarter, Firefly Aerospace Inc. has been pushing forward with additional progress on several items. Recently, we took delivery of Rashid Rover two, which as noted earlier, is a payload we're flying on Blue Ghost mission two. The UAE MBRSC team has been a pleasure to work with and payload delivery was very smooth as a testament to their team's impeccable knowledge and dedication to space and the moon. We are honored to be supporting MBRSC further strengthening US relations with The UAE. Our Blue Ghost Mission three team completed the preliminary design review. As the mission progresses towards its launch for NASA targeted for 2028. As a reminder, Blue Ghost mission three will utilize Firefly Aerospace Inc.'s Blue Ghost lander, an Electra orbiter and a rover from Blue Origin Honeybee to investigate the unique composition of the Grutheissen domes. A part of the moon that has never been explored before. Blue Ghost mission three will deploy the rover and operate six NASA sponsored payloads for more than fourteen days on the lunar surface. And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that time named Blue Ghost Mission one to its list of the best inventions of 2025. With Firefly Aerospace Inc. spacecraft program director Ray Ellensworth, also named among the world's rising stars on the TIME 100 next list. The planets are aligned with the White House, Pentagon, and NASA demanding speed and scale through transformational change. Leveraging commercial innovation, and investments into technology and production systems. We're delivering on those demands. We've mapped our return to flight path for Alpha Flight seven added alpha contracts via the hypersonic task order, and are expanding our plans. For multiple resilient launch sites. We are pursuing the $175 billion Golden Dome program on multiple fronts. And are clearing operational milestones. Across our product lines. These are exciting times at Firefly Aerospace Inc., as we execute our strategic growth plans and create new categories in space that support our customers and inspires the world. That concludes our prepared remarks. I'll turn it back over to Michael.

Michael Sheetz

Operator

Thank you, Jason. Operator, we're ready to take questions.

Operator

Operator

Thank you so much. And as a reminder, to ask a question, press 11 and wait for your name to be announced. To remove yourself, press 11 again. Moment for our first question. And it's from Sheila Kahyaoglu with Jefferies. Please proceed.

Sheila Kahyaoglu

Analyst · Jefferies. Please proceed

Good afternoon, guys, and thank you. Maybe just on visibility into launch seven timing now. How do you think about how that impacts 2026 Alpha launches? Does that put pressure on the rest of the manifest? Or do we think about launch date still a good target timing?

Jason Kim

CEO

Yeah. Sheila, thank you for that question. This is Jason. So we're targeting in between late fourth quarter and beginning of, early first quarter for our Flight seven launch. We'll get a lot of you know, post flight data from that. But you know, we are still assessing, 2026. And you know, our plans are we get a good flight up get the post data, and continue production. As you know, we have a production line going. So that's how we were able to take the next stage one booster and apply it to our flight seven. So we're just continuing to make progress on production.

Sheila Kahyaoglu

Analyst · Jefferies. Please proceed

Got it. And then maybe if I could ask on I know it's only been a few days since you closed SciTech. So how are you just thinking about gonna next quarter or going into year end moving forward on the integration and the road map there? And just potential revenue synergies.

Jason Kim

CEO

Yes. Sheila. The integration with SciTech is going very smoothly. We've done a lot of work with our finance and accounting and our human resources and IT and the list goes on and on, especially in engineering. One of the strategic values of the SciTech acquisition was it bolsters our national security pursuits. $175 billion Golden Dome program. And in addition, when we look at M&A, we're looking at strategic fit. We're looking at culture fit. Financials as well, but also synergies. And in the engineering department, there are a lot of synergies with software. Our hardware is defined by the software that goes into it. And so SciTech best practices and software developers the classified software developers, will help bolster capabilities that we already build today. So there's a lot of synergies there. And in addition, SciTech has a lot of capabilities that they could leverage Firefly Aerospace Inc. as well for their programs in particular. There's a lot of you know, forge work that they're doing, a lot of command and control work that they're doing, a lot of autonomy that they're doing, and there's a lot of synergies with what we're doing with our Electra spacecraft in terms of space domain awareness, missile warning, missile tracking, and autonomy that we could synergize with SciTech.

Sheila Kahyaoglu

Analyst · Jefferies. Please proceed

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. One moment for our next question. That comes from Seth Seifman with JPMorgan. Please proceed.

Seth Seifman

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please proceed

Thanks very much, and good afternoon. Wanted to follow-up on SciTech. Know, if how should we think about the growth rate in that business versus know, the the LTM revenue that that you've reported? And and then well, let's just start with that one and then I have a follow-up as well.

Darren Ma

CFO

Yeah. Hey, Seth. This is Darren. We haven't broken outside tech separately. We've rolled it in and factor in. So our our 2025 number. So, I mean, when you look at 2026, you know, that's obviously dependent on a number of factors. Number of Alpha launches. Have an know, we're making great progress on the clip side. While generating revenue on the development. And on the spacecraft side, we've got know, Blue Ghost missions two, three, and four ramping and fall in parallel as well as Electra missions.

Seth Seifman

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please proceed

Right. Okay. Okay. And and for okay. And and so SciTech not not really much color at this point about how that I I think it was one sixty something in the slides for the the LTM revenue.

Darren Ma

CFO

Yeah. We we've included obviously, I mean, right now, there's some moving parts, but we've included in two months of that into our 2025 revenue guidance.

Seth Seifman

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please proceed

Right. Okay. And I guess, when we think about just more conceptually about how this fits into the business, SciTech can provide, and you talked about the analogy with the iPhone and and the apps and having it go into your hardware. Is is the is the intention for this to be something that's exclusively or very much, having the resources dedicated to your hardware or, you know, to the extent there's other hardware involved in in Golden Dome. That you would be pursuing the ability to have SciTech, you know, apps or or you know, SciTech involved in supporting the hardware that's made by others.

Jason Kim

CEO

Yes, Seth. This is Jason. Thank you for that question. SciTech will be operated as a Firefly Aerospace Inc. subsidiary. And they'll operate under its current business model. So Jim Luszowski is the CEO. So I think he'll report into me directly. We did that for deliberately so that SciTech could continue to provide their best in class capabilities for all their government customers, but also their commercial customers. There's a number of prime contractors that they support with both ground processing and software analytics but in addition, also onboard processing, edge processing as well with the algorithms. And so we want them to continue that growing business, but where there are synergies is, you know, we build our own spacecraft as well, our lunar landers and our Electra orbiters, and so we will be able to leverage their software developers and their best practices and their algorithms to put onboard our spacecraft as well in addition to who they already support. In addition, they also do a lot in ground command and control and ground processing. And that's something that today could help some of our programs that we have. For national security in that they can provide classified mission operation centers as well as classified processing. In terms of Golden Dome, what they add to our offering is know, as you know, Firefly Aerospace Inc. offers our Alpha responsive launch capability to launch targets as well as hypersonic test vehicles. We also have our Electra spacecraft that can serve and is well positioned for the maneuverability requirements for a space-based interceptor capability. But SciTech has the ground processing and fire control element. That is also required by the Golden Dome program. And that's something that gives us you know, multiple shots of the goal for Golden Dome.

Seth Seifman

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please proceed

Excellent. Thanks. Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Edison Yu with Deutsche Bank.

Edison Yu

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Hey, thank you for taking our questions. Wanted to ask about the international opportunity. You cited the Alpha Partnership, and in Japan. What kind of volume do you think of launches is maybe up or grab outside The US?

Jason Kim

CEO

The short answer is we want to continue building on the relationship with Japan and others in that region. As we build up relationships you know, we'll give more firm numbers in terms of the total available market. But what I would say is in the past, I've heard that Japan has $6 billion for applying to space. So that's a very large market, and they are also looking at their own Space Force that they stood up in the past couple years. So we envision that they'll need the same things that The US and other allies will need. Things like responsive launch, things like know, SciTech ground processing and software. Also things like a constellation launch with Eclipse, and furthermore, orbiters, such as Electra. We're working with, not only Japan, but the European Space Agency. We've been in discussions with The UAE, as mentioned before, and the RSC. So it goes beyond just you know, Alpha launches. It includes all of our product lines. And you know, the success and progress we've had with expansion into other launch sites. That gives us more resiliency of launch and more opportunities to have launch cadence launching from more destinations. Such as Wallops and Sweden, gives us a lot of good experience to support this study with SpaceGatan.

Edison Yu

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Understood. And then separate topic. On on I wanna follow-up on the SciTech question earlier. Can you disclose any sort of maybe backlog numbers or pipeline numbers around that business? And and I don't know. Kind of not not trying to give out a growth rate, but you would expect this to to grow right.

Jason Kim

CEO

Going forward in the next couple years. Yeah. Absolutely, Edison. So I give you a little bit more color there in terms of SciTech. SciTech backlog is roughly $170 million, so that'll be additive to the $1.3 billion that we exited Q3 with.

Edison Yu

Analyst · Deutsche Bank

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you so much. And as a reminder, if you do have a question, simply press 11 to get in the queue. Our next question is from Kristine Liwag with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed.

Kristine Liwag

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please proceed

Hey, good afternoon, everyone. I just wanted to follow-up regarding SciTech on the guidance. You guys highlighted last twelve months, revenue for SciTech is $164 million. You know, if we if we kinda look at that on a monthly basis, that implies $14 million of revenue per month, and it looks like you're gonna own this thing for about two months. So presumably, you know, that's $28 million of potential SciTech revenue in 2025, but you only raised the mid of your guidance by $15 million. Can you talk us through what the moving pieces here are of the changes?

Darren Ma

CFO

Yeah. Hey, Kristine. So just give you a little bit more color there. Yeah, it includes the our guide includes the two months of SciTech. Not all the SciTech revenue is all linear. So that's one part of it. There's some obviously, some, obviously, some moving pieces there. We've also included in in our revenue guide, and it the updated Alpha schedule as well. So it includes, again, the two month of SciTech and our updated Alpha schedule. So that at at that point, you know, we've raised our we've raised our guide to where it is, the $150 to $158 million.

Kristine Liwag

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please proceed

Great. Super helpful. And then, also, you know, just looking back regarding your your launch success, you know, the launch six, you know, was a failure, and then this most recent ground test testing, the anomalous event also was a failure. So when you look at the repeatability of your capability, you walk us through what you're changing in your operational structure to make sure that the subsequent launches here would be successful. Are there changes that you're implementing, and how should we think about your path towards a repeatable, successful launch?

Jason Kim

CEO

Yeah. Thank you for that question. Yeah. Following the test event, you know, we immediately took action and put implemented corrective actions. Which I mentioned before is includes increasing the inspection requirements for the fluid systems. Optimizing some first stage sensors, and also incorporating additional automated reports. We also had a day-long quality stand down with production integration and test teams. We implemented key process improvements. We conducted a number of exercises to review and optimize our existing procedures. And we're gonna continue to enhance our reliability quality culture. The team's gonna continue to hold regular exercises. For these sustained process enhancements. I will say that safety and quality has been a major focus for me this past year at Firefly Aerospace Inc. After the test event, the team immediately started the root cause analysis. And when initial findings showed the process errors, that's when I immediately requested a full stand down. Of stand down production integration and quality test team, stand down day, required all of the executive leaders also to attend. And this was our moment to utilize industry best practices and reset, refocus, and return us to flight.

Kristine Liwag

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please proceed

And do these events with Alpha change the timeline with Eclipse at all?

Jason Kim

CEO

The short answer is no. We have different flows for Eclipse. In terms of the the test stands, both the structural testing and the engine testing. There are some subject matter experts we have at the company that are supporting Alpha but that's for a limited period of time. We are also staffing up on the Eclipse program per our program plan. And so you know, this should not Alpha should not affect our Eclipse production. I will also say that of the benefits of our common commonality in our product lines is that every time we reduce risk or learn best practices on any one of our product lines. It also benefits the other programs. In terms of carbon composites and tap off cycle engines and test procedures as well.

Kristine Liwag

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Please proceed

Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Our next question is from Sujeeva De Silva with ROTH Capital. Please proceed.

Sujeeva De Silva

Analyst · ROTH Capital. Please proceed

Hi, Jason, Darren. My first question is on Golden Dome. Could Can you please go through some of the details of how Firefly Aerospace Inc. perhaps would SciTech would have opportunity here so we can kinda think about what may be coming, as that program starts up. Have, have have, offerings.

Jason Kim

CEO

Yeah. Thanks, Sujeeva. This is Jason. I think the plan is aligned. As I mentioned, in the call, the White House, the Pentagon, they have strong initiatives for reform for speed and scale and affordability. You've heard that on the Golden Dome program under general Gute Line. You've also heard it from secretary of War Hegseth and others. You know, it's things like the first is only twenty four hour Space Force Victus Knox mission. That they want more of, and we have more of those kinda missions coming as well. Know, they want more OTAs more CSOs. They wanna look at commercial technology first as a default. And so they're very focused on interoperability, speed, scale, strengthening competition in the industrial base. With that, know, we've we've been in communications with the Goldman Dome customers, in terms of know, Alpha Rockets, like I mentioned before, to support test targets for the space-based interceptors. Also, hypersonic test as well because there's a rich backlog of hypersonic test technology that needs to get burned down. So Alpha provides a commercially available capability to launch up to one ton of into orbit and and two tons of suborbital regimes. It's also something that, if you look at Golden Dome, it's got multiple lines of effort, at least this first tranche of space-based interceptors, there's at least five lines of effort. Three are space-based, and two are ground-based. And with the acquisition of SciTech, we're able to go after not only the rocket part of Golden Dome, but also the space-based interceptor part of Golden Dome, with our Electra vehicle, partnered up with SciTech, for some of the discriminating algorithms. And then the ground piece which includes the fire control system and the ground control element, that's something that SciTech does for a living. As you know, they are the prime contractor and software developer for the apps and the the hardware portion of Forge. The Space Force. And if you remember what Forge does, it takes in all the sensor data with high volume at rate from low Earth orbit, medium Earth orbit, geosynchronous orbit, polar orbit, you know, zebras, and know, next generation OPIR systems takes all that data at rate, and then processes it into decision quality information that the warfighters can use to to go and, protect our nation. So it's that type of ground processing and software analytics that can be brought to bear to Golden Dome. Just like you know, other national security ground systems. That the space development agency has and the Space Force has.

Sujeeva De Silva

Analyst · ROTH Capital. Please proceed

Okay, Jason. Appreciate all that detail. And then thinking about, SciTech and the synergies, I know it sounds like it's a very, you know, feels like it's a very terrestrial sort of value proposition for SciTech, but could it possibly enhance what you may be planning with Ocula? And being able to extract analytics information from LUNAR observation, in the future as well?

Jason Kim

CEO

You're spot on, Sujeeva. You know, anywhere that you could take sense you know, you know, optical information, infrared information, even radio frequency information, whether it's around the earth or interplanetary or even the moon. And Mars. SciTech has the capabilities with their forty years of algorithm development and continuous you know, tech refresh of those algorithms and apply it know, almost from a library like LEGO pieces mix and match it to apply to different missions such as Ocula. Ocula is gonna you know, debut next we're targeting, late next year, 2026 to launch our Blue Ghost two mission, and that Blue Ghost two mission, there will be an Electra transfer vehicle that will orbit the moon for five years, and it'll do the first commercial imaging and mapping of the lunar surface. It also be tasked to do space domain awareness in cislunar space. And so all those algorithms that SciTech provide today for missile warning, missile tracking, and ISR and space domain awareness around the Earth. Can also be applied to the moon as well.

Sujeeva De Silva

Analyst · ROTH Capital. Please proceed

Okay. Thanks, Jason.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And this concludes our Q and A session. I will turn it back to management for final comments.

Michael Sheetz

Operator

This is Michael. Thank you so much for joining today's call. We look forward to talking to you next time in our fourth quarter financial results. Have a good day.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our Q and A session. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect.