Firefly Aerospace revenue more than triples in third quarter

Why it matters: Firefly's earnings release shows sales growing quickly on launch, lunar and defense work, while the company is still losing money and spent $69.7 million in cash on operations in the quarter.

Firefly Aerospace (FLY), which builds rockets, lunar landers and space defense software, said on Nov. 10, 2026 that revenue for the third quarter more than tripled to $110.7 million from $30.8 million a year earlier, according to its earnings release filed with the SEC.

The company said its backlog, the value of contracted work not yet booked as revenue, reached a record $1.7 billion at the end of September, up from $1.5 billion three months earlier. Revenue for the first nine months of the year was $309.2 million, compared with $102.2 million a year earlier.

Firefly posted a third-quarter net loss of $94.2 million, or 56 cents a share, compared with a loss of $133.4 million, or $1.50 a share, a year earlier. The year-ago loss included a $42.2 million charge from a change in the value of warrants and a $30.4 million loss on paying off debt. Gross margin was 22.9%, down from 27.6%, as cost of sales grew faster than revenue. Research and development spending rose to $76.0 million from $48.8 million.

The company used $69.7 million in cash for operations during the quarter and spent $15.6 million on property and equipment. It ended September with $409.3 million in cash and cash equivalents and $125.4 million in short-term investments, compared with $793.0 million in cash at the end of 2025.

Among the contracts Firefly listed for the quarter were an extension of Lockheed Martin's agreement for up to 25 Alpha launches through 2031, a $94 million Space Force contract tied to modernizing ground-based radar systems, and its first European launch deals, for two commercial Alpha launches from Sweden's Esrange Space Center with SSC Space. Since the quarter ended, Firefly said, it signed contracts with AST SpaceMobile valued at more than $1.3 billion covering licensed technology, engine deliveries and engineering support.

CEO Jason Kim said in the release that Firefly is "converting" its "pipeline and backlog into results."

Firefly said it expects full-year 2026 revenue of $440 million to $450 million, according to the Form 8-K and its attached release.

Not investment advice.

Sources

How we checked this: We read Firefly Aerospace's third-quarter 2026 earnings release and the Form 8-K it was furnished with, both filed with the SEC on Nov. 10, 2026 and saved at about 8:30 AM ET on Nov. 11, and checked every figure against the release text and tables. The photo was checked against its Wikimedia Commons file page.

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Firefly Aerospace revenue more than triples in third quarter as backlog reaches $1.7 billion

Sources