After nearly a year, Firefly Aerospace is slated to finally make their second launch attempt of a their Alpha rocket. Originally scheduled for July 17th, their new mission, “To the Black,” is scheduled to launch Sunday, September 11th. It isn’t just a new rocket; in many ways, it’s a whole new Firefly, one that might be on the cusp of radical transformation.
Big Changes
As we mentioned in our previous coverage of Firefly, they’ve gone through a lot of changes. Originally created as “Firefly Space Systems” by former Virgin Galactic VP of propulsion Tom Markusic and partners, the company shuttered and was eventually reborn as Firefly Aerospace under the new ownership of Ukrainian tech entrepreneur Max Polyakov, with Markusic remaining as CEO.
The new company attracted interest and support in the United States, getting one of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services contracts in 2018. They continued development of their Firefly Alpha rocket and its Reaver engines, started developing other rockets and vehicles (the Firefly Beta, Firefly Gamma, and “Blue Ghost” lander), and finally made their first attempt to launch a Firefly Alpha on September 10, 2021. The launch was unsuccessful, and they began work on their second Alpha launch.
Markusic said after the failed launch that it was an “electrical connector issue” due to higher-than-anticipated vibrations, and that the problem had been resolved. Firefly has given no indication to the contrary since then, and with the new launch coming up, it’s safe to assume that they believe the problem is resolved.
Firefly’s New Leadership
Since that launch, however, the company has gone through dramatic changes in leadership and ownership.
The growing concern about Polyakov’s ownership stake in the company among US Government officials led to Polyakov selling his ownership stake in February of 2022, with AE Industrial Partners (AEI) taking over ownership and leading a US$75m Series B round soon after.
Several months after Polyakov’s exit, Markusic exited his role as well. Markusic stepped down as CEO, becoming the company’s Chief Technology Advisor. While AEI partner Peter Schumacher temporarily took on the CEO role, Firefly announced on September 1st that their new CEO was going to be Brian Weber.
Weber’s background, according to both his LinkedIn and Firefly’s press release, is very different from that of many of the freewheeling entrepreneurs and recently-graduated engineers often seen leading space startups
Starting his career as a Captain in the U.S. Army, he served as an Airborne Ranger and received the Bronze Star in Desert Storm. He then spent most of the 1990’s and 2000’s in executive roles at established technology firms like Lucent Technologies, McData, CNT, International Network Services, GTSI, and AT&T.
In 2009 his career shifted to executive management of firms focused on US Government defense and national security clients. He became President of KS International LLC, which Weber’s LinkedIn described as “an 800+ person, $250M private equity-backed services company working for the US Federal Government in the counter-terrorism and diplomacy arena” and whose customers include the US Department of State and Department of Defense. In 2012 he became President & COO of XLA, which is a “provider of services and solutions to the national homeland, international, and defense sectors of the federal government.”
In 2015, he became President and CEO of KeyW Corporation, which Firefly’s release describes as “a leading provider of agile cyber operations and warfare, data analytics, and geospatial satellite payloads and sensors for U.S. government intelligence and defense customers.” He “transformed” the company, preparing it for a sale to government contracting firm Jacobs Engineering (now Jacobs Solutions) in 2019.
He then founded First Light Acquisition Group (FLAG), a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) in 2021. FLAG itself has a C-Suite with experience working with US Government clients, and is (according to SpaceNews) “seeking to merge with a company in the aerospace and defense markets.”
It’s a comprehensive resume, and one that should resonate for US Government clients.
Pivot to Government, Pivot to Grumman
In our previous coverage, we said that Firefly will need to adapt to a changing market, and Schumacher himself praised Weber as having “an impressive record of helping companies successfully navigate change, making him the clear choice to lead Firefly during this transitional growth period.” Weber’s record also shows, however, that he has had a career of an executive ideally suited for working with defense and national security clients.
Coupled with how AEI itself has (according to a release made during the Firefly acquisition) “a history of serving as strategic partners to the top national security agencies, including the Department of Defense,” the selection of Weber makes it very clear that AEI is adapting Firefly to this new market by aligning it closely with the American defense and aerospace sector. The new Firefly Aerospace, now removed from its Ukrainian roots, may become less like Rocket Lab or SpaceX, and more like Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics or Lockheed-Martin.
This pivot was made even more apparent last month, when Firefly and Northrop Grumman announced they “have joined forces to provide an American-built first-stage upgrade for the Antares rocket.” Northrop Grummans’ Antares is used with the Cygnus capsule for cargo resupply of the International Space Station, but its current first stage uses Russian engines and and is manufactured by Ukraine’s Yuzhmash, which may pose a problem due to the current war between the two countries.
The Firefly Beta, a larger version of the Firefly Alpha that is being launched on Sunday, will be redesigned to replace the first stage in the upcoming Antares 330 rocket. This new “fully domestic” version of the Antares will use seven of Firefly’s new Miranda engines, currently in development, and will be followed by the two companies working together on “an entirely new medium class launch vehicle.”
Schumacher said at the time that “Firefly prides itself on being a disrupter in the new space industry and collaborating with a proven space pioneer like Northrop Grumman will help us continue that disruption.” Assuming that Sunday’s test launch is successful, though, this new Firefly’s being focused far less on “disruption” and far more on “collaborating.”
A Possible Acquisition?
The question remains: with all this change, where will Firefly be in the coming years? Indeed, will there even be a Firefly Aerospace?
Space communicator Scott Manley suggested in his recent video on the Northrop Grumman collaboration, that there might not be an independent entity called “Firefly Aerospace” for too much longer. “If you look at this, I’m pretty sure this is investors very specifically looking at Northrop Grumman acquiring Firefly at some point,” he said, adding that ”this is a way for investors to get some exit.”
He pointed out that while Northrop Grumman has recognized expertise at building solid rocket boosters, “they don’t really have a good launch vehicle of their own”—or at least not one that can compete with SpaceX and Rocket Lab. The closest is the Antares, which Northrop Grumman acquired by acquiring Orbital ATK in 2018, but that rocket has been dramatically affected by the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Firefly’s rocket would not.
Firefly would also be providing a very different kind of launcher than Northrop Grumman; as Manley said, “the Firefly Alpha is one of the biggest carbon fiber composite [vehicles] ever flown.” The expertise that Firefly has developed in designing and manufacturing these vehicles could be useful to Northrop Grumman in a variety of other contexts, not to mention Firefly’s expertise developing the Reaver engines and their combustion tap-off cycle.
If AEI were positioning Firefly for acquisition, that would also help explain severals decisions that they made along the way. Replacing Markusic with former Bill Weber, with his decade-plus experience in US Government contracting, would make the firm a far more appealing acquisition target for a more traditional aerospace and defense contractor like Northrop Grumman.
It’s also a strong indicator of AEI’s intentions that Weber’s most recent leadership experience was in a “transformation” of KeyW to prepare it for its sale to Jacobs Engineering Group.
Firefly Proving Itself Before a “Transformation”.
That said, any possible acquisition may be a while off, if it even happens at all.
The Firefly Alpha is a small-class launcher, and Northrop Grumman may not be in any need of that capacity. Firefly also still needs to prove that it can work; as we said in our earlier coverage of Firefly’s second launch, there’s a lot riding on the succes of “To the Black.” Northrop Grumman may decide that an independent Firefly is better for their needs, trusting that AEI and Weber will manage the company in a way that suits their needs.
There’s also Weber’s SPAC to consider. While there is no indication that FLAG has anything to do with Firefly, and there’s been some controversy over SPACs’ success as vehicles for taking space-focused companies public, it’s still inarguably true that the new CEO of Firefly created a SPAC the year before he was chosen by AEI to take over the company. Weber may be preparing Firefly to go public, with FLAG as the vehicle by which it’s made to happen.
Firefly was a very different company at this time last year. It will be a very different company at this time next year. Whatever transformation Weber oversees at Firefly, that much is clear.