Firefly Aerospace

Firefly is an American end-to-end space transportation company committed to providing economical and convenient access to space for small payloads through the design, manufacture, and operation of reliable launch and spacecraft vehicles.

Created: 2019-01-22

Updated: 2024-02-29

Company - Firefly Aerospace

Founded
Country
2014
USA
Funding
$271M+
Website
Firefly Aerospace
Social
Firefly Aerospace

Product/Service - Blue Ghost

Classification
Cargo Transportation & Landers
Category
Commercial Lunar Lander
Transport Service (LEO-Moon)
Commercial Lander
Fields
Moon
Status
Development
First launch
2024

Blue Ghost

Our first Blue Ghost mission was awarded by NASA as part of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative and will deliver a suite of 10 NASA-sponsored payloads, as well as other commercial payloads, to the lunar surface in 2024. The initial award was over $93 million dollars. These payloads will operate using lander-provided data and power resources through transit to the Moon, for an entire lunar day, and into the lunar night in Mare Crisium. This exciting mission will support scientific lunar research and will contribute to developing a sustainable presence on the Moon.

As the most powerful platform in its class, Blue Ghost will fly yearly lunar surface missions to diverse locations including the lunar poles and far side.

In March 2023, NASA Picks Firefly Aerospace for Robotic Delivery to Far Side of Moon.

Blue Ghost Mission 1 will carry commercial and government payloads, including 10 NASA-sponsored instruments, to Mare Crisium on the Moon’s near side. The payloads support NASA’s goal to build a sustainable lunar presence by conducting several first-of-its-kind demonstrations, including testing regolith sample collection, Global Navigation Satellite System abilities, radiation tolerant computing, and lunar dust mitigation.

Firefly Aerospace Completes Blue Ghost Lunar Lander Structure Ahead of Moon Landing for NASA, 2023-10-04.

Product/Service - Elytra, SUV (Space Utility Vehicle)

Classification
In-Space Transportation
Category
Space Tug
Transport Service (LEO-GEO)
Orbital Transportation
Fields
Transport Service (In-Space)
Status
Development
First launch
2024

Elytra Dawn: Rapid On-Orbit Services

Elytra Dawn supports responsive hosting, rideshare, and delivery missions in low Earth orbit (LEO) and beyond. The lightweight orbital vehicle can be rapidly deployed on our Alpha launch vehicle to meet customers’ urgent mission needs. With an upcoming mission in 2024, Elytra Dawn offers multiple on-demand deployment opportunities for rideshare customers.

The NRO mission, scheduled to launch on a Firefly Alpha launch vehicle in 2024, will demonstrate multiple on-orbit deployments with Firefly’s Elytra orbital vehicle and Xtenti’s Fantm-Ride small satellite dispenser. Elytra will deploy commercial rideshare payloads with Fantm-Ride, before performing an on-orbit maneuver. After the maneuver, Elytra will remain in orbit on standby, prepared to deploy U.S. government payloads on-demand.

Elytra Dusk: Responsive On-Orbit Utilities

Elytra Dusk supports larger, more advanced on-orbit missions from low Earth orbit (LEO) to geosynchronous orbit (GEO). With enhanced maneuverability, power, and autonomy, the intelligent platform offers responsive on-orbit tasking, such as relocation, space domain awareness, and deorbiting services.

Elytra Dark: Persistent Orbital Infrastructure

Elytra Dark is designed to serve as persistent orbital infrastructure in support of a wide variety of missions from LEO to lunar orbit and beyond. Multiple Elytra Dark vehicles can be coordinated for more advanced space domain awareness and on-orbit servicing. The autonomous vehicles are ruggedized to support interplanetary transfers and deployments across extreme environments. An iteration of Elytra Dark will serve as the transfer vehicle for Blue Ghost Mission 2, enabling additional customer opportunities for lunar orbit delivery and operations.

Space Utility Vehicle (SUV) - Previous name

Firefly’s Space Utility Vehicle (SUV) takes your payload to orbits a small launch vehicle could never access before. By means of the in-space propulsive third stage, uplink/downlink services, and up to 2 kW of solar power, SUV is capable of satisfying a wide variety of mission architectures that last up to 5 years.

Firefly Research has been selected to receive a NASA contract to support development of a revolutionary new spacecraft called the Space Utility Vehicle (SUV). The SUV provides the in-space bridge between Firefly’s Alpha launch vehicle and its Blue Ghost lunar lander, allowing Firefly to provide the only complete end-to-end space transportation solution in the industry.

Firefly Research, LLC (FFR) is pleased to propose to NASA the development of a Space Utility Vehicle (SUV) to a CDR level of fidelity. This vehicle serves as a solar electric transfer stage, offering enough Delta-V to transfer more than 500 kg of payload from Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to Low Lunar Orbit (LLO) after launch on a small lift launch vehicle. While most technologies needed for such a transfer stage are reasonably mature, the SUV is innovative in how the vehicle architecture breaks the long-held assumptions of Electric Propulsion (EP) being either slow or expensive.

We are able to offer a high-power platform with rapid transit capability at a competitive cost through refueling and reuse of that platform, amortizing platform cost over multiple missions. In this section, we explain the details of this architecture, the roadmap to a commercially viable SUV including developments already underway, and the specific aspects that will benefit from SBIR funding.

DARPA LunA-10 Program Study, 2023-2024

To this end, DARPA has selected 14 companies for the 10-Year Lunar Architecture (LunA-10) Capability Study, which aims to catalyze the setup of a future civil lunar framework for peaceful U.S. and international use. LunA-10 seeks to study the rapid development of technology concepts for a series of shareable, scalable systems that can operate jointly, creating monetizable services for future lunar users.

Firefly to develop framework for spacecraft that can dock together on-orbit to provide on-demand refueling, delivery, transport, and de-orbiting services. ased on the capabilities of Firefly's Elytra orbital vehicles, the spacecraft hubs would provide responsive tasking for a wide range of cislunar services, such as refueling, delivery, and transport.

News

Created: 2023-03-05

Updated: 2024-02-29

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