Firefly lunar lander touches down on the moon
POSTED BY: second
UPDATED: Wednesday, August 5, 2026 17:26
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Originally posted by second:
Firefly Aerospace is living the line "You got a cargo? Don't care much what it is" from Malcolm Reynolds, the captain of the spaceship Serenity in the television show Firefly and the movie Serenity. The quote reflects Mal's mercenary and opportunistic nature, as he is more interested in making a profit than in the specific nature of the cargo.
https://www.google.com/search?q=You+got+a+cargo%3F+Don%27t+care+much+w
hat+it+is.+Malcolm+Reynolds
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
I've always felt that Firefly is an explanation of life. The good, the brash, the indifferent.
T
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So where are we at with this Moon and Mars stuff
Mars is mostly the USA, all the Soviet stuff crashed but the Chinese are there now and have a Rover like the USA does Mars exploration
Others are putting satellites around Mars
The Moon, NASA beat the Russians to the Moon
Soviets had a Lunar Robotic Rover
it was basically thought the Moon was dead but then someone found water deep inside a Lunar creater, so Europeans ESA send satellites, the Japanese, South Korea, the Chinese land samples drive a China rover around and take samples back to Earth from the Moon.
South Korea is there, India it had a few accidents but it also is on the Moon with Rovers.
the Chinese say they will put a 'Nuclear Reactor' on the Moon and 3-D print a Base but people are not sure if the Chinese want the Moon or Mars
a lot of people look to the Moon
KASA aims to complete the design of the lunar lander by 2028, launch the lunar soft landing verification probe in 2031, and launch the lunar lander in 2032
https://www.chosun.com/economy/science/2024/11/04/3WKCSAFT5TKMRVZXVHC3
OA4TEI/
and now US private companies are there
Japanese company ispace prepares for lunar lander to touch down on the moon
https://mynews13.com/fl/orlando/space/2025/05/30/japanese-company-ispa
ce-gets-ready-to-land-on-the-moon
Four angles of Firefly's Blue Ghost lander touching down on the Moon
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How to LAND on the Moon in 2025
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Firefly Raises More Than Expected in IPO. The Stock Starts Trading Today.
By Paul R. La Monica | Aug 07, 2025, 8:47 am EDT
https://www.barrons.com/articles/firefly-aerospace-ipo-stock-price-edf
01e8f
In this article commercial space company Firefly Aerospace is launching an initial public offering.
Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander successfully touched down on the moon in March. Now Firefly faces another big challenge: Trying to convince Wall Street that its stock could be the next IPO moonshot.
Firefly has already surpassed expectations. It priced its initial public offering after the closing bell Wednesday at $45 a share, which was above the expected range of $41 to $43 a share. That was already an increase from a previous range of $35 to $39.
It also boosted the size of the IPO. Firefly would be valued at more than $6.4 billion at a price of $45 and will raise nearly $870 million from the stock sale. It is selling 19.3 million shares, up from an original proposal of 16.2 million shares.
The stock is expected to start trading on the Nasdaq Thursday under the ticker symbol FLY.
The company isn’t profitable, and revenue is relatively small. But it has a backlog of $1.1 billion and is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. It announced in late July that it just received another a $176.7 million NASA contract to deliver five NASA-sponsored payloads to the Moon’s south pole in 2029.
Firefly also has contracts with big defense contractors, such as Lockheed Martin [LMT], L3Harris Technologies [LHX], and Northrop Grumman, which has invested $50 million in it.
The company works with the government’s Space Force military division and has a partnership with Honeybee Robotics, a subsidiary of Blue Origin, the Jeff Bezos-backed space exploration company.
Firefly and several other start-ups are looking to capitalize on a resurgent IPO market in the past few months. Medical imaging company Heartflow and data center operator WhiteFiber are also set to debut this week. This follows the successful IPOs of design software firm Figma, drone maker AIRO, stablecoin company Circle Internet Group, and Nvidia-backed cloud/artificial intelligence leader CoreWeave. All have soared from their IPO prices.
There is increased fascination with space and defense companies in general. “We’re seeing a potential banner year for space and defense tech when it comes to venture capital,” said Ali Javaheri, emerging technology analyst at PitchBook, in an email to Barron’s. Private space tech companies HEO, Impulse Space, and True Anomaly have all raised substantial amounts in VC funding this year.
“Public markets are reflecting this momentum too,” Javaheri added. “The Firefly IPO is very much in line with this trend. With rising geopolitical tensions and soaring defense budgets globally, investors are clearly betting on space and defense as growth sectors.”
Firefly will join a growing list of publicly traded firms with ties to the business of launching rockets, such as smaller Firefly competitor Intuitive Machines, plus Karman Holdings and Voyager Technologies, which both went public earlier this year.
“Everyone understands the value of space for defense security. So that’s a business opportunity,” said Micah Walter-Range, president of space consulting firm Caelus Partners and a contributor to the S-Network Space Index, in an interview with Barron’s. Asset management firm Procure uses the index to manage its passively run Procure Space exchange-traded fund, which trades under the cutesy symbol UFO.
“Firefly has been delivering on some of its ambitions. It’s a good time for them to go public. It makes sense,” Walter-Range added. “If they use the money from the IPO wisely, they can capitalize on government and commercial opportunities.”
Walter-Range noted that Firefly likely wouldn’t be added to its index until a semiannual rebalancing later this year. But Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest has a Space Exploration & Innovation ETF [ARKX], too, while VanEck has a Space Innovators ETF tha
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I'm still following this thread. I love hearing good news for Firefly.
T
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The Largest Space Tech IPO of the Year Just Launched, With a $6.3 Billion Valuation. Can the Stock Go to the Moon?
By John Bromels – Aug 10, 2025 at 6:50PM
Fans of the canceled-way-too-soon space Western Firefly will be sad to learn that the company's name isn't actually related to the TV series. Instead, it's a name Firefly founder Tom Markusic -- a former SpaceX and Virgin Galactic engineer -- selected to embody a hypothetical future in which rocket launches are as common in the night sky as fireflies.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2025/08/10/the-largest-space-tech-ipo-o
f-the-year-just-launch/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Bullshit...
He can deny his subconscious but, Joss made Firefly and space synonymous in everyone's mind.
T
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FAA clears Firefly Aerospace to resume Alpha rocket launches
By Travis Webb | Sep 17, 2025
https://www.statesman.com/business/technology/article/texas-austin-spa
ce-faa-firefly-aerospace-launches-21052030.php
Cedar Park-based Firefly Aerospace has FAA approval to resume Alpha rocket launches after an April 29 mishap on Alpha Flight 6. The company said planning for Alpha Flight 7 is already underway.
Cedar Park rocket maker Firefly Aerospace Inc. — the Central Texas company that stuck a commercial moon landing in March and soared onto Nasdaq in August — has been cleared to resume launches of its Alpha small-lift rocket.
The Federal Aviation Administration approved the return to flight after Alpha’s sixth mission failed April 29. An FAA probe, supported by an independent review board, found the flight safety system worked as intended and the flight posed no risk to the public.
The company said engineers have identified the cause and that fixes have been made.
After its launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, Alpha Flight 6 climbed as intended through stage separation before the lower stage ruptured milliseconds later. The resulting pressure wave struck the upper stage, damaging its engine nozzle extension and cutting thrust. Despite the damage, the upper stage regained control and reached an altitude of about 320 kilometers before running out of propellant just short of its target deployment orbit. The craft, along with the Lockheed Martin satellite it was carrying, crashed in an ocean safety zone north of Antarctica.
The company said data from ground video, onboard telemetry, post-flight tests and computational fluid dynamics pointed to excessive heating on the leeward side as the likely root cause. Corrective actions included thicker thermal protection on Stage 1 and reducing the angle of attack during critical phases.
“At Firefly, technical challenges aren’t roadblocks — they’re catalysts,” said Jordi Paredes Garcia, Alpha chief engineer. “Following the lessons learned and corrective actions implemented, we were able to further increase Alpha’s reliability.”
The April flight carried Lockheed Martin Corp.’s LM 400 technology demonstrator and marked the start of a multi-launch agreement that could span up to 25 Alpha missions over five years. Firefly is now working to set a launch window for Alpha Flight 7.
The FAA clearance caps a high-profile stretch for the suburban Austin company.
Blue Ghost Mission 1 achieved a precision lunar landing March 2 as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, making Firefly the first company to complete a fully successful landing. It has a growing portfolio of contracts with government and commercial entities including NASA, the U.S. Space Force, Lockheed Martin Corp., Northrop Grumman Corp. and others.
In August, Firefly debuted as a public company on Nasdaq, raising at least $868 million and earning a peak valuation near $9.84 billion. Its stock is down about 2.5% from its initial public offering price of $45 per share — and has slipped about 27% from its first-day closing price.
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Nice, very nice.
T
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Quote:Oops!
Originally posted by second:
FAA clears Firefly Aerospace to resume Alpha rocket launches
By Travis Webb | Sep 17, 2025
The first stage of the rocket that Firefly was prepping to make Alpha's seventh-ever flight exploded on Monday (Sept. 29) during a preflight trial.
"During testing at Firefly's facility in Briggs, Texas, the first stage of Firefly's Alpha Flight 7 rocket experienced an event that resulted in a loss of the stage," the Texas-based company wrote in an update on Monday afternoon. "Proper safety protocols were followed, and all personnel are safe. The company is assessing the impact to its stage test stand, and no other facilities were impacted."
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/firefly-ae
rospaces-alpha-rocket-explodes-during-preflight-test
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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