Firefly Aerospace: From landing on the moon to landing on Wall St.

Yahoo

a day ago

Firefly Aerospace (FLY) is going public, making its Wall Street debut on the Nasdaq (NDAQ). CEO Jason Kim talks to Yahoo Finance Executive Editor Brian Sozzi about the company's ambitions, landing on the moon, and going public.
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Here with me now is Firefly Aerospace CEO Jason Kim. Jason, uh, what looks to be a very strong response. You got the whole team here, uh, in the background here. A big clap it up, guys. Come on. Big clap for you guys. There we go. There we go. So Jason, they're clearly enthused. This is your team, uh, they've worked very hard to get to this point. For those investors not familiar, uh, with your story as a company, I mean, why do you think you saw, uh, such tremendous demand on the road show?
Well, it's copies not aspirational. It's operational. We've got orbital flight heritage on our Alpha rocket. It's done a 24-hour launch, uh, for the Space Force that set a gold standard. That's gonna be really important for Golden Dome. And then we're working on a 16-ton reusable rocket. That's going to be launching commercial satellite constellations, national security, space launch constellations, missions to the moon, uh, and also we have a blue ghost lunar lander. It's gonna do annual missions, and then we're gonna ramp up those missions even more because you heard Secretary Duffy talk about putting nuclear power plants on the moon. Well, we're the first and only commercial company to successfully land on the moon. So we like to build up the infrastructure on the moon, make the moon more frictionless for everybody else to use it because everything's gonna go to the moon and through the moon in the future. Then finally, Electra. I'm really excited about that spacecraft. That's a spacecraft that every spacecraft manufacturer would die for. But we have it at Firefly. It's got our Spectra engines. Eight of those Spectra engines helped us get to the moon and then successfully land on the moon. We're putting that on every single Electra spacecraft, and it's gonna be very important for things like space-based interceptor hosts, space domain awareness, planetary imaging, and long-haul communications.
How hard is it to put a nuclear reactor on the moon? Why do we even need that, Jason?
Well, you know, if you want to sustain life on the moon and then eventually go to Mars, you're going to have to have advanced technology that you validate and qualify before you use it. Um, the moon has regular shots of the moon. We get we can get there regularly, frequently. We can qualify and validate those technologies. Everything needs power, then you need communications, then you need position navigation timing, then you need imaging. So it goes further and further. So we're doing our part to keep America at the forefront, keep America first on the moon. If we're first on the moon, we're first in everything.
Tell us a little bit about your back story. I mean, you're still relatively new at Firefly. It's a big day for you, of course, too. But what is your resume and what are you bringing to the table as CEO of this company?
Well, it's like dog years. Uh, I've been here for almost a year and it's, uh, feels like a lot more. Yeah. But you know, I first fell in love with this company when I was part of the Victus Knox mission. I was the satellite for that mission, and I just saw the culture, the people, the can-do spirit, the calculated risk-taking, just the rapid decision-making, just overcoming obstacle after obstacle, they absolutely nailed that 24-hour launch. And so it's hard to not fall in love with a company like Fly.
Where do you fall in terms of, I mean, there's other competitors in this industry, uh, naturally SpaceX is the one that always comes to mind. What is your niche and how do you take the, I mean, do you view it as a competitive battle for market share with a SpaceX?
Well, we're very complimentary of each other. Uh, I think SpaceX really plowed the field for the rest of us. Uh, they really changed the public mindset of fail fast, fell forward, learn, continuously improve. Uh, so companies like Fly, Firefly, we're doing more of that. And you know, we're going to rate up our Alpha launches, we're going to rate up our Eclipse launches, our Blue Ghost lunar lander launches, as well as our electro launches. Um, it's really just, uh, there's no one size fits all rocket on the market. It's kind of like your t-shirts. Some people wear small, some people wear medium, large, XL. Uh, one size does not fit all, and you can see that in the, you know, at sea transportation, air transportation, and in space transportation as well. So we deliberately chose at Firefly the small to medium, 1 ton to 16 ton market, and it was a really great choice.
Right off the jump in your prospectus, uh, you call out what, $1.1 billion in backlog. Help us understand that number. When does that get realized and how is that going to shape your financials looking out over the next few years?
Well, it's all about our people's execution. Uh, you heard last Tuesday on 29th of July that we just got awarded our fourth lunar lander contract. It was $178 million. That increased our backlog from $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion. So you can see our team is focused on execution and what they're capable of doing when we give them the guidance, the support, the resources to do their jobs, they're knocking it out of the park.
When do you think you will hit profitability?
It goes back to we're rating up, and as we rate up and we have more launches and we have more lunar landers and more Electras going up there, we're going to hit profitability.
Uh, in the first Trump administration, uh, they brought what, Space Force to life. Now, so now it's, it's starting to take more of a shape. How important is that initiative by the administration in terms of what you do and in terms of your business model?
It's extremely important. Being a veteran myself and serving in the Air Force and being a part of their early legacy of the Space Force, I'm a big believer in the Space Force. I think it was a smart move by the president, and now it's taken off with things like tactically responsive space. You're gonna see more of those. You see the budgets out there for 2026. They're increasing the tactically responsive space launch budget line. If you look at Golden Dome, that's a big program. Who did we launch Victus Knox for? We launched it for General Gutline, who's the Golden Czar that was confirmed, General Gutline. So he knows what Firefly is capable of. He's gonna see more and more from us as we go public and we supercharge our and accelerate our growth.
You brought up a very important point at the top. You view space as a national security concern. Talk to us about that.
Well, you know, space is something that we're all dependent on, uh, and it's undeniably contested. There's US rivals that are doing things in space to take away our freedom of action in space. That's taking away our freedom on Earth. And so it's extremely important. Uh, space is really hard. Leo, Mio, Geo, Cislunar is really hard. If you have a faint of heart, don't go into the space business. It's really, really hard. But that's why we have these bold Fireflies. They do the hardest things in space. We want them to do more of that. And so space is hard, but landing on the moon is even harder. You've seen that with multiple attempts.
Are you, are you hopping here real quick? Are you already thinking about landing things on Mars?
You know, everything that we're doing, uh, on the moon, uh, everything that is gonna go into space for space exploration is gonna go to and through the moon. And so, yeah, all this technology is extensible. Uh, we talk about at Firefly, as long as we execute, we can always do bigger and bigger and bolder and bolder missions.
Your team went quiet here. I mean, this is your big day. Come on, guys. Let's go. There we go. Jason, they're, uh, they're cheering you on here at the Nasdaq. Where do you, where do you think the stock's gonna open before we let you go?
You know, the market's going to tell us, but we've seen, uh, growing, strong conviction and engagement from investors. Uh, we see a lot of demand from our customers. There's way more demand than supply right now, and that's why we're rating up, and we're going to execute, and we're going to deliver.