Firefly Aerospace posts record $117.7m Q2 revenue, net loss widens
Firefly Aerospace posted second-quarter 2026 revenue of $117.7 million, a 659% increase on the $15.5 million recorded in the same period a year earlier and a 45.5% sequential rise from Q1. The Cedar Park, Texas-based company attributed the surge to a broadening portfolio of government contracts spanning lunar landers, orbital vehicles, and defence software. Full-year 2026 guidance was set at $420 million to $450 million.
Despite the revenue acceleration, Firefly remains firmly loss-making. Net loss for the quarter reached $92.3 million, widening from $63.8 million in Q2 2025, as research and development spending hit $71.5 million and selling, general and administrative costs climbed to $47.5 million. Adjusted EBITDA, which strips out stock-based compensation and transaction costs, came in at negative $61.2 million. Free cash flow for the quarter was negative $106.3 million, reflecting $24.7 million in capital expenditure alongside the operating burn.
Contract wins and programme milestones
Firefly secured several notable awards during the quarter. A $144 million NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services contract covers a rapid Blue Ghost lander mission, the company's sixth contracted lunar mission to date. A separate $75 million subcontract from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory covers the MoonFall mission, in which an Elytra orbital vehicle will deliver four drones to the Moon's south pole, targeted for no earlier than 2028.
On the defence side, Firefly was awarded a $94 million Space Force contract under the Ground-Based Radar Digitization programme, and a $5.5 million US Air Force option through its SciTec subsidiary for an operational data fusion system supporting the Cloud-Based Command and Control programme. The company also onboarded to a $981 million Space Force IDIQ vehicle for test and training infrastructure, giving it the right to compete for task orders through 2032.
The quarter also saw the acquisition of Space-ng, a supplier of AI-powered vision navigation and autonomous guidance systems, for integration into Blue Ghost and Elytra platforms. Firefly separately announced a collaboration with NVIDIA using a Jetson module for on-orbit data processing in lunar orbit, supporting the company's Ocula imaging service. A new Lockheed Martin multi-launch agreement extends up to 25 Alpha rocket flights through 2031 in the Block II configuration.
Firefly raised $181.6 million in net proceeds through an underwritten equity offering during the period, ending the quarter with $459.8 million in cash and short-term investments, down from $793 million at December 2025 after repaying a $260 million revolving credit facility earlier in the year.
Market context and competitive read
The commercial launch and lunar services market is entering a period of heightened activity. NASA's CLPS programme is the primary commercial vehicle for lunar payload delivery and has so far contracted with a small number of providers, of which Firefly is now one of the most active. Intuitive Machines and Astrobotic are the other principal CLPS awardees; both have encountered technical challenges on their early missions, raising the premium on demonstrated landing success. Firefly claims to be the first commercial company to achieve a fully successful lunar landing, which it will seek to convert into a durable competitive advantage as it pursues further CLPS task orders.
The company's dual positioning across civil space and defence is increasingly common among new-space players. Rocket Lab, Relativity Space and others have expanded into spacecraft manufacturing and government payloads to offset the inherent lumpiness of launch revenue. For Firefly, the SciTec subsidiary provides a recurring defence software and data-fusion revenue stream that partially decouples top-line growth from mission cadence. However, the combination of heavy R&D investment, campus expansion costs and growing stock-based compensation means that the path to operating profitability remains distant. Investors will focus on whether the 2026 full-year guidance range can be met, and on any margin progression as manufacturing volumes scale through the second half of the year.