TLDR
- Firefly Aerospace stock closed at $20.76 Friday, up 36.8% in one session.
- A $1.3 billion deal with AST SpaceMobile covers 36 engines, IP licensing and engineering support.
- Jefferies reiterated its Buy rating and $35 price target.
- Firefly was onboarded to NASA’s $10 billion CLPS 2 lunar contract.
- Third-quarter earnings are due Tuesday, November 10.
Firefly Aerospace (FLY) stock closed at $20.76 on Friday, up 36.8% in a single session. That snapped a 26.6% slide over the previous four weeks.
Trading volume ran higher than usual. The spark was a deal with AST SpaceMobile worth more than $1.3 billion over three years.
Firefly will supply engines, license its intellectual property and provide engineering support. The work is for AST SpaceMobile’s new heavy-lift rocket, called Blacklift.
What AST SpaceMobile Is Buying
The order covers 36 engines. That is 27 Miranda main engines and nine vacuum Vira engines for the first three Blacklift rockets.
After that, AST SpaceMobile gets a license to build the engines itself. Think of it as Firefly selling the first batch and the recipe.
AST SpaceMobile (ASTS) closed at $32.33 on Friday, up 7.05%. It was quoted at $33.77 in premarket trading.
Jefferies reiterated its Buy rating and $35 price target after the news. Analyst targets on the stock range from $25 to $50.
The firm called the deal validation of Firefly’s engine IP. It also sees the agreement as a new source of funding.
That money is expected to speed up the Alpha and Eclipse programs. Firefly’s revenue grew 179% over the last twelve months to $287 million.
Not every analyst move was upward. B.Riley cut its target to $40 from $50 on a new valuation method, and KeyBanc went to $35 from $50, citing multiple compression and rising interest rates. Both kept Buy ratings.
A Moon Contract Follows
On Saturday, Firefly said it was onboarded as a vendor under NASA’s $10 billion CLPS 2 contract. The ordering period runs 10 years.
The status lets Firefly compete for lunar delivery task orders. CEO Jason Kim said Blue Ghost Mission 1 “proved Firefly can deliver on the Moon.”
Blue Ghost landed in March 2025 and met all its mission goals. Since then, Firefly has won four more CLPS 1 missions and the MoonFall mission.
Production is growing too. A newly expanded cleanroom can hold up to 12 spacecraft, and Firefly is building a larger lander after buying SciTec and Space-ng.
Virgin Galactic (SPCE) also rose Friday, gaining 16.4% to $2.77. It is down 19.1% over the past month.
Last quarter, Firefly posted record revenue of $117.7 million. The adjusted loss of $0.42 per share missed the expected $0.22 loss, and backlog stood at $1.5 billion with full-year revenue guidance of $420 million to $450 million.
Firefly reports third-quarter results on Tuesday, November 10. Zacks expects a loss of $0.49 per share on revenue of $106.31 million, while Investing.com cites analyst estimates near $103 million.
