Firefly inks $1.3 billion deal to supply engines for new AST SpaceMobile 'Blacklift' rocket (updated)
UPDATE 2-Firefly inks $1.3 billion deal to supply engines for new AST SpaceMobile 'Blacklift' rocket Adds details on Firefly deal and launch industry context from paragraph 9 onward
By Joey Roulette
WASHINGTON, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Firefly Aerospace FLY.O will supply core engines for a new rocket under development by satellite communications firm AST SpaceMobile ASTS.O in a $1.3 billion deal, underscoring a push among satellite companies to secure access to space.
The engine deal, announced on Friday, is a key part of new plans by AST SpaceMobile to develop its own rocket named Blacklift as it races to deploy a satellite constellation for global cellular broadband service and wean itself off a reliance on third-party rockets like SpaceX's SPCX.O Falcon 9.
Firefly will build and supply 27 of its new Miranda engines and 9 in-space Vira engines for the first three Blacklift rockets, per the agreement, which also grants a license to AST to eventually manufacture the engines itself.
Shares of Firefly were up about 18% following the announcement of the deal, while AST SpaceMobile's stock was up about 1%.
AST said it is targeting late 2028 for the debut launch of Blacklift, an ambitious development timeline. The company said the rocket is "designed for reusability" and can loft up to five of its BlueBird satellites per launch.
Satellite companies have faced difficulty booking rides to space in the past year as major rocket launch companies — like Elon Musk's SpaceX and, in future, Rocket Lab RKLB.O — increasingly dedicate their mission manifests to their own satellite constellation deployments.
AST said it still plans to use external rockets and has over 100 launch agreements in place as it targets a total deployment of 248 satellites to complete its global broadband network, which is designed to beam service directly to mobile phones.
Roughly a dozen of its BlueBird satellites have launched since 2024 on rockets from SpaceX, Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and the Indian Space Research Organisation. In April, an issue with Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket doomed a BlueBird satellite to a lower-than-planned region of space that led to its deorbital demise days later.
US ROCKET RAMP-UP
For Firefly, the AST agreement brings in needed cash to speed up production and testing with its Alpha rocket and a next-generation rocket in development, Eclipse, whose first launch is planned for sometime in 2027.
Firefly CEO Jason Kim said the deal, valued at more than $1.3 billion, "supercharges Firefly's production system — more test bays at our Rocket Ranch, long-lead materials bought ahead, and a bigger team of engineers and technicians."
Rocket Ranch is the company's rocket manufacturing and testing hub in Briggs, Texas, about 20 miles (32 km) from its headquarters outside Austin.
The Miranda engine is also the heart of Firefly's Eclipse. The company's Alpha rocket uses a different engine called Reaver.
Firefly in 2021 signed a similar deal for its Reaver rocket engine with launch startup Astra Space that included engine deliveries and an intellectual property agreement allowing Astra to produce Reavers in-house, with some competitive restrictions on how Astra could use the engine for its own rockets.
It was not immediately clear what, if any, restrictions were included in Firefly's AST agreement, but the company in a statement described it as a "Non-Competitive Deal: AST SpaceMobile will launch their own satellites, and Firefly will continue to serve the broader government and commercial launch market."
The deal is the latest display of US rocket production ramp-ups as the space industry confronts global scarcity in launch options, with SpaceX's dominant Falcon 9 nearing retirement in the coming years while its next-generation Starship rocket foments a broader industry pivot toward large, vertically integrated launch systems.
Blue Origin on Thursday revealed a new rocket engine named Northstar and an expansion to its New Glenn rocket that adds a third rocket stage, optimizing the vehicle to carry heavier payloads to more precise locations in space.
(Reporting by Joey Roulette; Additional reporting by Akash Sriram in Bengaluru; Editing by Joe Bavier and Chris Reese)
((Joey.Roulette@thomsonreuters.com; 7034696632;))