Firefly Aerospace Inc. (FLY) Q2 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Greetings. Welcome to the Firefly Aerospace Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Michael Sheetz, Firefly's Director of Investor Relations. Michael, you may begin.

Thank you, Carmen. Hello there, I'm Michael Sheetz, and welcome to Firefly's Second Quarter Financial Results Call. I'm pleased to be joined on the call by CEO, Jason Kim; and CFO, Darren Ma, as we report for the period ending June 30, 2026. Today's call will include forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements the company will make about its future financial and operating performance, growth strategy and market outlook. Actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by these forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause the actual results and trends to differ materially are set forth in our annual and quarterly reports filed with the SEC. Firefly assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their respective dates. Also in this call, we will discuss both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures is included in the second quarter 2026 earnings release. Unless otherwise stated, financial information referenced in this call will be non-GAAP. Our earnings press release, SEC filings and a replay of today's call can be found on our Investor Relations website at investors.fireflyspace.com. Now I'll turn the call over to Jason.

Thank you, Michael, and welcome to our Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. Firefly's first quarter surpassing $100 million, comes in just our ninth year as a business, pairing record-breaking revenue with our history-making programs. Halfway through the year, the momentum we started with is building across our entire company, bolstered by multiple flagship contract wins and operational milestones achieved on our revenue-generating Blue Ghost, Elytra, Alpha, Eclipse, FORGE and Golden Dome programs as well as the recent acquisition of Space-ng. Our second quarter contract wins drove our backlog to a record total of $1.5 billion, further supporting our long-term growth trajectory. Our strategic investments to increase spacecraft production capacity are timely, given the latest round of NASA Moon-based contract awards for both Blue Ghost and Elytra. To showcase our expanded 144,000 square foot spacecraft campus, my team and I hosted NASA's Moon-based lead, Carlos García-Galán for a tour of landers, transfer vehicles, vertically integrated manufacturing and our mission operations center. After seeing our end-to-end capabilities, Carlos shared that our recent MoonFall program award is not only important for space exploration, it is also important for national security as future missions can collaborate with the Space Force. Our capabilities are inherently dual use, such as our Ocula imaging and mapping service, so we embrace this call to action. We will continue to find ways to synergize between NASA and the Space Force to force multiply their investments toward a common strategic goal of securing the ultimate high ground. As demonstrated by our recent track record of landing and surface operations as well as contract awards, the spacecraft we're building will deliver and support many of the capabilities needed to enable permanent presence on the moon. Our Lunar contracts constitute a revenue-generating flywheel with NASA as the base customer and additional bolt-on contracts from a diverse set of commercial and international customers. Additionally, space is a national security priority as shown by significant year-over-year increases in the U.S. Space Force budget, major conflicts around the world and evolving missile threats. Market signals from customers point to orbital launch only getting more supply constrained, demand for government and commercial constellations and missions outstrips the rocket capacity available, both in the U.S. and globally. Moon base, national security, Golden Dome and assured access to launch are driving significant industry tailwinds for space. Firefly is addressing those pressing needs with the advancement of our technologies, scaling of our product lines and development and training of our workforce. Space is accelerating and Firefly is accelerating with it. For those new to Firefly and as a reminder for others, we are a space and defense company delivering innovative hardware and software to perform the hardest missions in space for national security, exploration and commercial technology. Our hardware is represented by our spacecraft, the Blue Ghost lunar landers and Elytra satellite orbiters and our launch vehicles, the small-lift Alpha and medium-lift Eclipse. Our Spacecraft Solutions platform also includes our software portfolio of AI-enabled offerings, which are proven in national security operations as well as autonomous guidance navigation systems. The industry tailwinds behind artificial intelligence, data centers and autonomy are fueling operational realities for our company as we deliver crucial no-fail systems in support of the U.S. and our allies. We have co-located vertically integrated infrastructure within a 25-mile radius near Austin, Texas. This is where we develop and build our own carpet composite structures, in-house patent engine technology and software autonomy for all of our products. We are obsessively focused on prioritizing safety, quality and reliability as we scale up our hardware and software product deliveries for our national security, space exploration and commercial customers. Now turning to our business updates. In the second quarter, we completed new milestones across each of our product lines and services while also engaging with our top customers. As a leading lunar company, we're proud to have won our fifth and sixth moon mission contracts during the second quarter, adding 2 more missions for delivery in 2028. During the second quarter, NASA awarded us with another commercial lunar payload services contract for an accelerated Blue Ghost lander mission to the moon. The primary goal of this mission is to demonstrate repeatable access to the lunar surface on an accelerated time line, executing the mission half the time of our first landing. This increases our target from annual lunar landing to multiple per year. NASA's contract represents a near build-to-print lander design to enable faster production cycles and template our successful Blue Ghost into a production line vehicle. For our next lunar mission that is landing on the far side of the moon, we completed assembly of the Blue Ghost landers main structural and fluid components. We're now integrating the avionics and payloads as we prepare to stack the lander on top of our Elytra spacecraft. All of our primary structures have passed acceptance testing for our far side mission, while our flight-proven Spectre engines are undergoing acceptance testing and preparation for integration. All the mission payloads have been delivered as well. We are currently anticipating riders to the dark will launch early next year, pending delivery of our spacecraft to Florida and confirmation of the launch window. Similar to our first mission, we'll have 1-week windows each month to ensure we arrive at the surface for the beginning of Lunar Day. Riders to the dark will showcase one of the most complex multistage missions to the moon to date. The full spacecraft stack is 22-feet tall, consisting of our lander on top, the European Space Agency Lunar Pathfinder selling in the middle and our Elytra spacecraft at the bottom. Elytra will serve as a long-haul communications relay order and host our commercial ocula imaging and mapping service. We are proud to support both commercial and international payloads. Our far side mission carries payloads representing the U.S., Australia, Canada, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. Additionally, we acquired Space-ng, a leader in AI-powered vision navigation and autonomous guidance systems, further adding to Firefly's vertical integration. They bring proven spacecraft software and camera hardware for Blue Ghost and Elytra, bolstering our capabilities to advance the future of autonomous space operations. Firefly is partnering with Benchmark Space Systems on their recent selection for the DARPA LASSO program. We will help the mission operate safely and persistently in very low lunar orbit, utilizing our newly acquired Space-ng team and their vision navigation hardware and software. The software from our new acquisition was proven on Blue Ghost Mission 1 when it perform autonomous hazard avoidance and navigation in the last hour to ensure we safely and softly landed on the moon surface. Work on Blue Ghost's mission to the Gruithuisen Domes is well underway as the team completed a critical design review with our customer during the second quarter. This milestone progressed development of the spacecraft as we march towards this historic mission to the silica-rich volcanic features of the moon, where humanity has never explored. Our rover subcontractor Blue Origin recently passed its critical design review, unlocking the flight build toward delivery to Firefly. Likewise, on Blue Ghost South Pole mission, we completed the preliminary design review to verify the vehicles design before production begins. We continue to expand our spacecraft capabilities, both in infrastructure and technologies. During the second quarter, we expanded our Cedar Park campus, adding a new headquarters that is closer to our spacecraft facilities. We are more than quadrupling our spacecraft clean room space next to our grant from the Texas Space Commission, and we added our Gloworks innovation lab to support accelerated research and development without any disruption to our mature production lines. We're also looking ahead toward larger lander designs, which are maturing. We have submitted our proposal for the $6 billion CLPS 2.0 program and look forward to competing for opportunities to support the increased payload mass volume needed to build Moon-based infrastructure. Moving to Elytra. In the second quarter, Firefly won a new flagship role, MoonFall. We're proud to support this high-priority mission for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory under a $75 million subcontract for Elytra to deliver flying JPL drones to the Moon South pole in 2028. We have a robust working relationship with JPL from our Blue Ghost missions and are eager to collaborate further as we dare mighty things together. There's key national security interest in Elytra as well. Building upon the way we are using Elytra to carry our landers and support MoonFall, the Space Force has come out with a pressing request for information about fast transfer vehicles. These spacecraft could take critical national security small satellite payloads from GTO to GEO on diverse launch vehicles on a recurring basis. Elytra is uniquely suited to service this type of upside opportunity. In today's launch constrained reality, transfer vehicles become a relief valve for critical customers who are more schedule sensitive and just need a way to get to their mission unique destination from any available medium to heavy launch vehicle. The Elytra we are building for the defense innovation unit Project Sinequone is making progress toward launching next year. During the second quarter, we completed the integrated readiness review, which ensures that the spacecraft segment components and subsystems are available and ready to be integrated into the system. Since the end of the quarter, we also won a new spacecraft subcontract to support NASA's SkyFall mission to Mars. Through JPL, this $13 million award will see us manufacture, test and deliver the mission aeroshell for launch in late 2028. This is a strategic win for Firefly as it is the first time our core capabilities for the moon will extend to Mars. This is another statement mission for JPL as SkyFall is a high visibility program that will deploy a cluster of helicopter drones to the Mars surface. We have many upcoming shots on goal to support consequential moon-based, national security and space exploration missions with our landers and orbiters. Our SciTec National Security AI team added multiple wins as well. In the second quarter, we were awarded a U.S. Air Force contract option to deliver the operational data fusion system for the cloud-based command and control program. This came after a multiyear competition wherein our data fusion system was evaluated and selected from among high-profile industry and government-owned alternatives. This program is a centerpiece to the Department of Air Force's Air Battle Management system. Also in the second quarter, the Air Force Research Laboratory awarded us a contract to support development of the advanced algorithm R&D and verification architecture. We'll be supporting AFRL by implementing deep learning and advanced AI algorithms on small size, weight and power processors. This capability supports enhanced target detection, tracking and custody and is conducive to future on-orbit processing missions across multiple domains. It's also worth emphasizing again that Firefly was announced as a prime contractor for the Golden Dome program early in the second quarter. As a prime contractor on Golden Dome, we have a decisive seat at the table with the customer to listen to their needs and drive rapid solutions. This is no surprise to us that our AI capabilities are well positioned due to our battle-tested operational FORGE program. We are processing high volumes of missile warning and tracking satellite data at rapid data rates to help inform our guardians of threats simultaneously to keep our nation and allies safe. In the first half of the year, I spoke to senior Pentagon Generals and congressional leaders. There is unanimous support and advocacy for how critical FORGE is to the nation to keep ahead of advanced missile threats. FORGE recently achieved another operational milestone by integrating the GEO Wide Field of View spacecraft into the platform. FORGE continues to support conflicts around the world and recently received a superior performance rating from the Department of War for supporting operations in the Iran conflict. A few weeks ago, Firefly SciTec won a $94 million Space Force contract under the Ground-Based Radar Digitization effort. The GBRD program of record is a critical overhaul of legacy missile defense systems. We took the FORGE playbook in missile warning and tracking and applied it to the GBRD competition to secure the strategic win and now we are in execution. Nearly a year since our acquisition, this win represents the synergy of Firefly and SciTec in a 1 plus 1 equals 4 moment as our combined platform helps unlock capability. Shifting to launch, we are driving forward to launch our first Block II Alpha with Flight 8 now targeting the fourth quarter of the year. We are preparing for acceptance testing of Alpha in the next few weeks, followed by delivery to Vandenberg, static fire, payload integration and then launch. As with any flight, we'll disclose more specific timing as we get closer to launch. Launch timing is always dependent on variable factors such as customer readiness, regulatory approval, range availability, weather conditions and other factors that are not within our control. We also will conduct a thorough review of our post-Flight 8 data to ensure any lessons learned flow into subsequent launches. We are targeting to launch Alpha 2 additional times this year, Flight 8 and 9 for a total of 3 launches in 2026. And Flights 10 and 11 are already flowing through our production line as we build ahead for next year. Our demand remains strong, having sold the majority of Alpha's manifest through 2027. We have visibility into out years as well, in part thanks to the extension of our Lockheed Martin's multi-launch agreement. Additionally, we added a second hypersonic task order for Alpha from a confidential customer. During the second quarter, I visited Sweden's Esrange Space Center and met with our partner, SSC Space. With our support, they have completed critical milestones to get the pad ready, including the payload processing facility, horizontal integration building, ground support equipment buildings and a launch control center. Final construction of Launch Complex 3C is underway, and our first launch in Sweden is targeted for no earlier than 2028. We also recently hosted [ Space Katana ], our partners from Japan, who are eager to replicate Sweden's blueprint on their side of the Pacific. And at the Farnborough Airshow in the U.K., we met with new and existing customers who are keen to fly on Alpha from our current and future launch sites. These launch site expansions increase our cadence capacity beyond our operational Vandenberg Space Force Base launch pad. As we go global, our increased production rates supports Alpha's underlying growth strategy. We are making progress on rating up Alpha production while keeping safety, quality and reliability top of mind. We have taken new steps to increase Alpha production. And between May and August, we significantly increased overall production throughput. For a few examples, our new Alpha Mandrel tooling drove improvements in structure production time, allowing our automated fiber placement machine to decrease run time and enhance quality while manufacturing multiple vehicle structures simultaneously. We are increasing Reaver chamber throughput via more efficient machine labor and equipment utilization, leading to Reaver engine integration at higher rates. Our Cortex engineering facility, which opened in spring, added 55,000 square feet for subsystems production. This has already driven improvements in the pace of making harnessing, batteries and avionics that are used across our vehicles. Moving to Eclipse. We are focused on delivering the vehicle's first case to our co-developer Northrop Grumman, progressing through milestones for building and testing Eclipse. We are maturing Eclipse towards first flight. Our thunderous Miranda engine designed for reusability crossed 150 hot fire test to date as the campaign crosses key milestones at pace. A big recent unlock was the Flight-like Mission Duty Cycle test that the team completed with the engine firing for 226 seconds, all while completing both power ratio and mixture ratio sweeps. Our Miranda engine qualification test campaign is imminent as our recent test demonstrated the performance needed to meet the range of stress requirements during a launch. We're building ahead with flight Miranda engine chambers in production. The team also completed a first press qualification campaign of first stage COPVs. And the first flights forward bay is built and completed testing with our first stage tank test campaign now underway. The engine base structure, which mounts the 7 Miranda engines for each Eclipse first stage is in assembly and bonding as we prepare for integration. And finally, the metal hold-down release adapter is in build, which is a key piece of ground infrastructure that we are preparing for proof testing. We invested in a new on-site mezzanine at our Rocket Ranch with workstations that bring engineering and manufacturing teams to the factory floor, which you can see here is co-located with our production line. Firefly is addressing the most pressing demands from our diverse blue-chip customer base. Our team is focused on executing, improving our technologies, scaling our capacity to deliver our products and strengthening our bold and passionate workforce. With that business summary, I'll turn it over to Darren for a review of the second quarter financials.

Thank you, Jason, and good afternoon, everyone. Today marks a defining moment for Firefly. We delivered record revenue, crossing the $100 million threshold for the first time, while simultaneously achieving the highest backlog in the company's history at $1.5 billion. These milestone results demonstrate the accelerating demand for end-to-end Space and Defense solutions and are a direct reflection of our team's execution. Second quarter revenue of $117.7 million represents 46% sequential growth and an impressive 659% increase year-over-year. This acceleration was driven by exceptional performance in our Spacecraft Solutions business, where for the first time in company history, our team is executing on 5 lunar missions in parallel. We are also experiencing similar momentum in our AI software solutions with a national security customer requesting acceleration of their hardware order by 1 quarter. Within total revenue, Spacecraft accounted for $108.3 million, and Launch was $9.4 million. For those new to Firefly, let me briefly explain our revenue recognition model as it's critical to understanding our financial trajectory. The Spacecraft Solutions business generally recognizes revenue over time under each contract as we complete contract milestones. This provides a more predictable recurring revenue component alongside the more event-driven launch business. For the Launch business, we focus on the number of launches. For example, revenue for Alpha is recognized at a point in time when the launch occurs. For Eclipse, we currently recognize revenue as a percentage of completion based on program milestones as part of the Northrop Grumman partnership. Once the Eclipse vehicle is operational, we will recognize revenue when launches occur in the same manner as Alpha. We closed the second quarter with a total backlog of approximately $1.5 billion, up from $1.3 billion last quarter. This represents significant growth when you consider that we converted existing backlog into $117.7 million in quarterly revenue. The contract awards this quarter were headlined by 2 additional NASA lunar missions and the Alpha multi-launch agreement extension from Lockheed Martin. Subsequently after Q2, we closed an additional hypersonic task order, won a NASA JPL mission to Mars and onboarded to the Space Force's GBRD and [ Nightstar ] programs. Second quarter GAAP gross margin was 20.3% compared with 21.6% in the prior quarter. The modest decline was driven primarily by FORGE hardware purchases to support a U.S. government program during heightened geopolitical conflicts, as mentioned previously in the revenue section. GAAP operating expenses for the second quarter were $119.1 million compared with $113.1 million in the first quarter. Non-GAAP operating expenses for the second quarter were $94.3 million compared with $93.7 million in the first quarter. The slight increase represents our continued R&D investments to support Alpha Block II production ramp and Eclipse development. As a reminder, the primary differences between the GAAP and non-GAAP figures are stock-based compensation expense, onetime transaction-related expenses and the amortization of intangibles. GAAP operating loss was $95.2 million compared with a loss of $95.7 million in last quarter. Non-GAAP operating loss was $70.4 million compared with a loss of $76.2 million in the first quarter. GAAP net loss in the second quarter was $92.3 million compared with a GAAP net loss of $96.7 million in the first quarter. Our non-GAAP net loss in the second quarter was $67.7 million, this compares with a non-GAAP net loss of $74 million in the prior quarter. GAAP basic and diluted net loss per share was $0.57 compared with a GAAP net loss of $0.61 last quarter. Non-GAAP basic and diluted net loss per share for the second quarter was $0.42 compared with a loss of $0.46 last quarter. The net loss per share figures were calculated using a weighted average share count of 161.8 million. We exited the second quarter with a share count of 166.2 million shares, which includes shares from our common stock offering completed in June. For purposes of calculating net loss per share in the third quarter, we expect weighted average share count to be approximately 167.2 million. This number will increase by about 1 million shares per quarter. Stock-based compensation expense was $17 million in the second quarter compared with $12.5 million in the prior quarter. The increase was related to new stock-based awards that were granted during the period. Adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter was a loss of $61.2 million compared with a loss of $64.7 million in the first quarter. Our balance sheet remains a position of strength, ending the quarter with total liquidity of $940.3 million. This consists of $635.3 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments and $305 million of available capacity from our revolving credit facility, which remains undrawn. Our cash balance includes approximately $182.6 million in net proceeds from our June common stock offering. The capital raise positions us with substantial financial flexibility to invest in growth initiatives and accompanied a controlled block sale by insider stockholders. Capital expenditures for the second quarter were $24.8 million, up from $16.3 million sequentially, reflecting investments that enhance production capacity to drive our growth. This includes test stand upgrades to support Alpha Block II and expansion of spacecraft manufacturing, which positions us to support NASA's accelerated Lunar opportunities. Free cash flow was an outflow of $106.3 million compared with an outflow of $78.9 million in the first quarter. The increase is primarily due to the final SciTec acquisition-related payment of approximately $24 million. We also closed the Space-ng acquisition, which brings proven AI vision navigation and autonomous guidance systems, critical enabling technology for our Blue Ghost landers and Elytra orbiters. This acquisition adds approximately 15 software engineers, and we view this as a strategic transaction that vertically integrates a key capability on a cost-neutral basis. Regarding our revenue outlook for 2026, we remain confident in our trajectory to achieve significant annual revenue growth this year and reiterate the range of $420 million to $450 million. The second quarter was an inflection point for Firefly. We crossed the $100 million revenue threshold for the first time in company history, while also achieving record backlog of $1.5 billion. With over $940 million in total liquidity and clear line of sight to our revenue guidance for 2026, we have both the financial flexibility and operational momentum to continue scaling. As production ramps and operational efficiency improves, we expect to see corresponding expansion in gross margins and operating leverage. We're building Firefly to be the definitive end-to-end space solutions provider, and the results you're seeing today are proof of that vision becoming reality. We remain intensely focused on disciplined execution and delivering long-term shareholder value. Thank you for your continued confidence in Firefly. And with that, I'll turn the call back to Jason.

Thank you, Darren. Our record quarterly revenue is a testament to the focused execution of the Firefly team and our multiple contract wins show how the significant tailwinds from the efforts like the Moon base, Golden Dome and assured access to space are turning into realities for our programs. Firefly's strategic investments are paying dividends. SciTec is winning on more programs of record by leveraging our FORGE playbook repeatedly for additional phenomenologies and missions. Space-ng brings us greater vertical integration for more frequent, repeatable and reliable spacecraft operations and landings. Expansion of our spacecraft campus and Rocket Ranch are fueling production efficiency and scaling of Alpha, Eclipse, Blue Ghost and Elytra. We are expanding our global reach, thanks to partners in the international markets such as Sweden and Japan as the strong launch capacity demand extends beyond just domestically. The Moon opportunity is accelerating, and we're eager to apply our Blue Ghost playbook to larger landers for CLPS 2.0 to serve NASA's need for greater mass and volume to the lunar surface. We've talked before about missions to orbit the moon and beyond. Well, the beyond is here with our first Mars program, leveraging our Moon capabilities and extending it. Space is critical, and Firefly is a critical player in space. Thank you for joining today's call. Michael, back to you.

Thank you, Jason. We will be attending multiple investor events in September, and we look forward to seeing many of you next month. Operator, we're ready to take questions.

[Operator Instructions] It comes from Sheila Kahyaoglu with Jefferies.

Maybe I could just start off on Launch. 2-part question, if that's possible. You put out a press release noting the Lockheed Martin extension for 2 years to 2031 plus the hypersonic task order. I guess how do we think about that? And then you noted Alpha 8 into Q4 from late summer and 10 to '27. So I guess how is Alpha shaping up just given healthy demand in '27 as well and ability for launch?

Yes. Sheila, yes, the demand for launch is increasingly getting amplified. This is the most constrained you see in launch. And so there is strong demand that we see with Alpha. We saw it at the Space Symposium. We saw it at Farnborough at the U.K. as well as our BD team at Space Tide. So there's a lot of strong demand from existing and new customers, and that's referencing the Lockheed Martin extension, that's one of our existing customers. So that just reaffirms Lockheed's confidence in our Block II Alpha. It also reaffirms the 25 Alpha multi-launch service agreement. And we continue to collaborate with Lockheed on our next flights. We're even talking about offshore launches with combination with Seagate and Lockheed Martin and Firefly to do more responsive launches. And then the confidential hypersonic task order 2, that's another confidence builder in Alpha Block II because we can launch not only 1 ton to orbit, but 2 tons to suborbital, that makes Alpha very uniquely suited to launch multiple hypersonic missiles at a time. There's a lot of economies of scale with that. And so the second task order for the hypersonic missiles really helps burn down that rich backlog of hypersonic testing that is needed. And then we're seeing this with all the international customers we're talking to. We're seeing the strong demand also with commercial customers. And we're really excited about the progress we're making in our factory. We're seeing record production from our factory, carbon composites are providing tanks that are passing first-time quality. And we have Flight 8 that's in integration and test right now, and we're getting ready for acceptance testing before we ship it to Vandenberg and then do the static fire testing, integrate the payload and then get ready for launch. And then Flight 9 is entering the integration and test phase as well because we are so rich with carbon composite tanks. The machine shop is also flowing. We have a record number of Reaver chambers that are being delivered to our Reaver engine integration and test, thanks to a lot of the labor and equipment utilization that is more efficient. Since May through August, we've seen our factory for ramp up significantly. And then we've got 10 tanks that are completing. Flight 11 tanks are starting to get through their automated fiber placement machine production as well. So the factory is just flowing at record pace. And really, the demand is not the problem. The backlog is not the problem. It's really ramping up production so we can deliver the amount of Alpha rockets to meet the demand.

Can I follow up with, I guess, what -- is it just ability to produce? Or is it the customer on the 3 launches from 4 in '26? And how should we think about 2027 if it's still 12 launches?

I've always mentioned that there's always risk with customer availability and regulatory approvals and range availability as well as weather. Those are things that we'll still have to address but are out of our control. So those factors are things that we have to address for our Flight 8 and Flight 9. But the production is just ramped up. We are going to have several Alphas in this year. We're building ahead, as I mentioned, and that's giving us a good position for 2027 and beyond. And I mentioned before that a majority of our manifest for 2027 has already been sold out. And that's another piece of data point that just shows the launch demand is amplified right now. We're getting a lot of demand for more and more Alpha launches because it is the 1 ton rocket with orbital flight heritage as active. And another thing that helps us in 2027 is we're going to bring online in addition to our operational Vandenberg launch pad, we're going to bring online the Wallops launch pad in Virginia as well. And then as I mentioned before, in 2028, we'll be able to bring on our Swedish Space Corporation Sweden launch pad as well. So we'll have 2 launch pads next year, 3 launch pads in 2028 to help with the launch cadence opportunities.

Our next question comes from Seth Seifman with JPMorgan.

This is Alex on for Seth. Maybe a question for Darren. So Darren, I think in your prepared remarks, you mentioned how Spacecraft revenue was $108 million in Q2. And if you kind of look at the growth on a sequential basis, it was around 60%, which is obviously a pretty big number. Curious, I know you mentioned among the drivers that there's the 5 Lunar missions you guys are working on strength in AI software. And I think there's also an acceleration of a hardware order. I was curious if there's maybe a way that you could break that down a little bit more between those 3 pieces, just to give us a sense of what drove that revenue strength?

Yes. Alex, good to hear from you. So there's definitely some puts and takes this quarter from a revenue mix and timing perspective, but the trajectory in the destination to $420 million to $450 million in annual revenue remains the same. I mentioned the hardware order that was -- that impacted the timing into Q2. So that was an acceleration from a national security customer. And one of the strengths in this business is really the diversified revenue streams from multiple product lines, right? But there's really strong demand, as you can see, as evidenced on the Spacecraft side as the team is working through 5 Lunar lander programs in parallel right now. We're seeing similar strength in the AI software solutions. It's really going to offset some of the revenue impact of launch, right? What gives us a lot of confidence heading into the second half of the year is that we have 95% of our revenue booked for 2026 if you take the midpoint of our guidance.

Okay. Great. And then as kind of a quick follow-up, Jason, I think you mentioned that you're maturing towards the first Eclipse flight, but I might have missed it, but I didn't hear an update on maybe updated expectations on when that may be. Just curious if there is any updated expectation there.

Yes, Alex, again, I can't stress enough that the demand for launch capacity is amplified right now. We've never seen the launch capacity so constrained. So that not only helps the demand for Alpha but also for Eclipse. And right now, we are heads down getting all the qualification completed for our Miranda engine. Qualification is imminent. We just surpassed our 150th hot fire test. And what was very, very encouraging on this last hot fire was it was flight-like. It was 226 seconds, which surpassed the full Mission Duty Cycle duration of 206 seconds. And we got really great test results from that. and that unlocks moving forward. We're also building the Miranda flight engines in parallel. So we're making progress there. We've got a number of chambers for the Miranda engines. The forward bay, as I mentioned, has been qualified and tested. Every hardware part of the first stage of Eclipse is either in build or in test. And we've already qualified our tanks. We're continuing to qualify them. We've got flight tanks also in build as well. So all that hardware, we're very hardware rich at this time. We're making sure that everything is done with safety, quality and reliability at the forefront. And the thing about this capability is it's going to unlock a lot of launch capacity in the future. And we're working with Northrop Grumman on delivering the vehicle, the first stage no earlier in the next year. And this is an inaugural launch of no earlier than 2027. We did also complete COPVs in addition to the rocket engines, which are the hardest part of any rocket development. The COPVs are extremely challenging and difficult for the industry as well. And we completed COPV first press qualification campaign testing for the first stage. And then the hold down release adapter, that's where rubber meets the road, that holds down the rocket before launches. That's a key piece of the ground infrastructure, and we're preparing to prove test that. So lots of exceptional progress. Really proud of the team for all the progress that we're making. The factory floor is just really, really hardware rich at this moment.

Our next question comes from Edison Yu with Deutsche Bank.

Great seeing everyone in Farnborough. First question, I wanted to follow up on an earlier point. Let's assume the next launch, 4Q goes well. Not asking for guidance for next year, but what kind of cadence are you kind of targeting if the next launch goes well? Can you speak to that at all? Is it like once a month, once a quarter or twice a quarter, like what kind of cadence?

Yes. Good to hear from you, Edison. We have so much hardware on the floor. The production is at an all-time high. So that gives us really, really high confidence that we're going to continue to pump out Alphas at rate. As I mentioned, Alpha 8 is in final integration test before we ship it. 9 is entering right behind it in integration and test. 10, all the airframes are completed, 11 airframes are progressing. And so that gives us a head start on getting ready for rate next year. So that gives you an indication of what we're doing at this point that kind of gives us a lot, a lot of optimism for next year. The other thing is we're not going to talk about guidance for 2027, but I mentioned the hardware production ramp. But the people part of it, our workforce successfully launched Flight 7. That was a lot of muscle memory and repetitions that they got from that doing the static fire testing and then the launch itself, then doing the post processing of the data, and they're getting faster and faster at doing that using advanced tools that we have in-house. And so the goal is to launch Flight 8 successfully, get all the post-flight data, process that as soon as possible, let that flow into Flight 9 launch campaign and continue that momentum into 2027 and beyond.

Got you. Separate topic, I want to ask you about the Moon, I want to ask you about CLPS. Can you give us a sense of kind of what you're expecting for the rest of the year in terms of NASA awarding out task orders? Are we done with CLPS 1.0 and kind of waiting for 2.0? Do we expect more from 1.0? Do we expect 2.0? Just kind of a flavor if we should expect some stuff to bid and potentially win on some stuff before year-end?

Yes, we're never done with CLPS 1.0. There's 3 more opportunities in the second half of this year. We already won, as we mentioned before, the CS-8 opportunity, and we're on contract in the way we go because it's near build the print of our successful Blue Ghost Mission 1, and we also went further vertically integrated with acquiring Space-ng. So that is moving along. The opportunities ahead of us are 2 lander missions under CLPS 1.0 and then orbiter imaging service under CLPS 1.0 as well. So there are multiple shots and opportunities that go for the rest of the year. And because we invested in the CapEx to have quadrupled the clean room space, put in the most optimized streamlined assembly line that we could into that clean room as well as expanded our spacecraft campus with vertically integrated components like avionics and harnessing in-house engines as well. That gives us a really good position and extra capacity to take on more. So we see the CS-8 win in second quarter as just the beginning. It did put us in a category of we won not only that, but also the JPL MoonFall mission. So that was 2 of the Moon missions this year. It expanded our number of Moon missions in 2028 to 3. So that's a positive trend going from 1 mission a year to multiple missions a year. But that capacity in our hiring and staffing up is a good combination to go after more of these CLPS 1.0 missions. And then CLPS 2.0 is also happening. We did put a bid in for that, and we have designs that we were working on for that, and we hope to hear from NASA in the coming months. But we're really excited about the -- taking our success from the Blue Ghost Mission 1 and subsequent missions and applying it and extending it to a larger lander to take even more mass, even more volume to the Moon so that we can be part of the infrastructure build of the Moon base.

Our next question comes from the line of Michael Leshock with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

On the guidance piece, what are the biggest swing factors that could cause revenue to shake out either at the high end or the low end of the guidance range? And then given the unchanged range for the year, I think you were previously expecting 4 total Alpha launches in '26 and now you're expecting 3. So that would imply that you were able to reiterate guidance without the maybe $15 million or $20 million of revenue from that additional Alpha launch, assuming the ASP is a bit higher than these next ones for Flight 10. So ex-Alpha guidance would have increased. Is that the right way to think about it? And then, yes, just maybe the swing factors for that range?

Michael, good to hear from you. Yes. I think I touched on this a little bit earlier. When you look at where we are from a guidance perspective, we reiterated $420 million to $450 million and some of the moving parts there, as I mentioned before, the trajectory of our growing revenue in the destination, which is between the $420 million to $450 million, where we're going to be, we're going to land there. And we have really strong confidence because the team has been executing. You can see the momentum in Q2, but also heading into the second half of the year, as I mentioned, 95% of that revenue is already booked. So it's just up to us in terms of execution. Where things that swing on the high end or low end, I mean, Jason touched on it a little bit earlier. If we wind up winning one of these additional CLPS missions in the end of the year, it could push us towards the higher end of the range. And our business is really well diversified. There's multiple product lines that can generate revenue and continue to generate revenue. So you'll see that we're working on the FORGE program for AI software solutions, the 5 Lunar missions, Golden Dome SBI. And we're really excited about some of the most recent wins in terms of GBRD and SkyFall. That allows us to kind of offset some of the impact of Alpha launch.

Okay. Great. And then on SciTec, maybe you could talk about what you saw there in the quarter and how revenue might be impacted from geopolitical tensions when there's a lot more activity. Do customers pay more? Is it a function of higher demand during more activity? Any color on the contract structure there and what was seen during the war?

I think you're seeing strong demand on that side of the house. And you can see that we had a hardware order that got accelerated in Q2 and requested by our national security customer in terms of the geopolitical tensions, that's really been an area where there's really a strong demand in that product line. Maybe I'll let Jason comment on some of the geopolitical parts of it.

Yes, Michael, the conflicts have not gotten any better. We see a lot of -- the Iran conflict earlier in the year and that continues. It's the most missile conflict that we've seen in the history. In the first 30 days, if you remember, FORGE earlier this year, processed over thousands of threat messages. That was just in the first few weeks. And so the problem is continuing -- and it's not just in one region, it's global as well. And so the missile threats are getting more advanced. And because of those reasons, we need more AI capability, more battle space awareness, more technical intelligence, more tactical missile warning, missile tracking and strategic missile warning and tracking. So those are all things that FORGE is -- the purpose of FORGE is to provide that kind of AI software support to the guardians and force multiply each one of them so that we can keep our nation safe and our allies safe. We only see more acceleration of those type of capabilities because of this threat emerging.

One moment for our next question that comes from Kristine Liwag with Morgan Stanley.

Jason, Darren, Michael, you've clearly seen strong order momentum across your portfolio. I was wondering, as you convert these new awards into revenue, can you help us understand the profitability and cash milestones associated with that backlog, especially for some of these capabilities where you've already proven the technology. How do these margins and cash flow typically evolve as these new orders convert into revenue?

Kristine, good to hear from you. I mean -- I mean Q2 is a great example, right? When you look at the $117 million in terms of revenue, we converted pretty much all of that was from backlog conversion. And we're under contract, a lot of our contracts primarily on the Spacecraft side are milestone driven. So we're getting cash and that allows us to build out our teams and buy long lead items to support the programs for our customers as we progress through each one. So we're able to really just -- and on top of that, after we close some of these contracts, let's take the Blue Ghost orders from NASA, for example, these linear missions really have bolt-on opportunities, as Jason talked about, that allows us to expand gross margins, whether they're from commercial payloads or from imaging services like Ocula, which I would expect to be much higher gross margins. And then from a gross margin perspective, as we unlock Alpha and cadence increases, I would expect the corresponding increase in gross margin there. That's really the big unlock for gross margin going forward.

Great. Super helpful. And I guess you kind of partially answered my follow-up question. I guess, can you level set us in terms of how do we think about the path to positive EBITDA as a whole for the company and free cash flow breakeven? I guess, specifically, is there some sort of level of revenue as you convert some of those specific milestones that you get to where either it's a mix, scale, fixed cost absorption or more profitable contract leveling through where you can actually get to that profitability and positive free cash?

Yes. Really so much of our business is driven by these operational milestones. So our operational milestones really drive our financials. So things I look at as everyone else is looking at is Alpha getting alpha rate and cadence, right? Eclipse development, finishing up Eclipse development, that takes a lot off the R&D line. And we're excited about the ramp of our spacecraft business. It's it's progressing really well. There's a really high demand there for that business, whether it's our Blue Ghost lander electric vehicle or on the AI software solutions side, right? And that positions us really well for profitability in the future.

Our next question comes from Colin Canfield with Cantor.

Maybe following up on the supply-demand environment, if we could talk a little bit about Eclipse. How much of the national security customer are talking about essentially kind of like releasing some of the requirements on NSSL on-ramp? And how do you kind of think about Eclipse's prospects of getting early on-ramp to NSSL?

Colin, nice to hear from you. We're just heads down right now on our Eclipse program. We are going through qualification of Miranda and testing, getting the test data to inform our flight build as well. And same thing with the tanks, RP tanks and getting to a point where we can deliver the first phase to our co-developer, Northrop Grumman. Northrop Grumman leads the government-facing work like NSSL. And so we're confident that our co-developed Eclipse rocket, it's American made. It meets the standards and needs of the U.S. Space Force. And it's an ideal solution to deploy a broad range of payloads with such critical payloads that the Space Force demands. And so we're just working towards our first launch, showing the capability because at the end of the day, what matters the most is delivering the payload to the mission orbit that we sign up for, and that's what we're focused on. But as I said before, the demand for launch capacity is the most constrained we've seen it. There's strong, strong demand, both on the national security space launch program side as well as commercial and international. So as long as we continue to just focus on our first launch and get that vital data and then continue on, that's where we're focusing.

Got it. Got it. And then maybe on that same kind of topic, if you could discuss the pricing elements of the launch services agreement extension with Lockheed. Essentially, how do we think about that current list versus current list price? And how much of that pricing increase would you kind of attribute to hypersonics mix or other national security factors, second stage relay on orbit deliverability and the like?

Colin, good to hear from you. Yes. I mean, just overall Alpha pricing, we'd expect it -- I mean, Jason talked about the launch constrained environment. We'd expect our Alpha ASPs to go up over time. I mean, in the earlier years now in the next 6 to 12 months, we're burning down some of our earlier backlog. So you'll see some of those lower ASP missions burn off. But I would expect our prices to go up as a launch constrained environment.

One moment for our next question -- it comes from Griffin Boss with B. Riley Securities.

First for me, I wanted to jump back to the CLPS opportunity. You mentioned that you submitted a proposal for a larger lander variant to the Blue Ghost. Curious if we can hear any more details on that? Are we talking 500-kilogram payload capacity at time? Is there any more color you can provide there?

Griffin, the thing I could say right now because we can't release any proprietary information, but what the NASA Moon-based program announced in March as part of the mission program was they wanted 30 landers in the next 3 years and the first 15 were going to be nominal landers, and that's anywhere between the hundreds of kilograms to the surface of the Moon. But they also want an additional 12 landers that around the 2 to 4-ton kind of capability and then another 13 landers for the 8-ton kind of down mass. And so we have a scalable design that's modular that we can take different cargo to support human presence in the future. You're going to need power, you're going to need navigation and guidance, communications cargo to sustain life, rovers, light terrain vehicles, all of the above. And so we have a design that takes a lot of the common components that we successfully landed on the moon already with, but scales it in terms of size, volume and mass so we can take those Moon-based infrastructure cargo reliably. So we're talking the multi-ton kind of capability.

Super helpful. And then just one more, if I could. I was hoping we could touch back on tactically responsive space and specifically where your work with True Anomaly stands. I believe or at least it was our understanding that Firefly was originally supposed to launch that Victus Haze mission. But of course, as we saw Rocket Lab handle that launch. So curious if you could just give an update there, specifically with your work with True Anomaly.

Yes. We are very bullish on tactically responsive space. If you look at the Space Force budget, it could double from 2025 -- 2026 to 2027 numbers. And with that, the tactically responsive space line could quadruple. That's how important and critical this is. We are not just doing demonstration missions. In the future, we'll do operational missions because this capability is really to meet the needs of urgent and priority missions for the Space Force. It's also to deter U.S. adversaries in the space. And so we're delighted that there's multiple providers of this capability in addition to us. We were the first to do it within a 24-hour time line, but there's going to be more and more. And that's something we've always envisioned along with the Space Force. But the Space Force at their direction of the Space Safari moved our future tactically responsive space mission that will utilize now our upgraded Alpha Block II launch vehicle to launch True Anomaly's [ Jackal ] in the future. And this new mission will build on the lessons learned of VICTUS NOX. And we also did VICTUS DIEM earlier this year. Now the lessons learned from the successful Victus Haze and others that we will foresee in the future to shape the next generation of tactically responsive space missions.

Okay. So if I'm still on here, I just want to clarify then what you said. So does that mean your -- so there's no change in your response to space pipeline just that, that mission had it -- so with the Rocket Lab, that maybe you have another mission lined up in the future then, that mission is not lost. It's just saved for a later date. Is that the right way to think about it?

That's the right way to think about it, save for a later date per the Space Force direction.

Our next question comes from David Strauss with Wells Fargo.

This is Ben Tomick on for David. Going back to the CLPS missions. So with all the awards you have now and like more awards to come, how should we think about the accelerated Blue Ghost cadence impact on Blue Ghost margins? And is there a certain rate that we really see like an inflection of margins there?

Yes. I'll take that one. So I mean, obviously, with more Blue Ghost and spacecraft missions, that kind of spreads out that fixed manufacturing overhead we have in the business. So we'd expect our gross margins to continue to expand. On top of that, you're looking at in addition to the base contract that we've won from NASA, there's opportunity for commercial providers to for additional payloads from commercial providers. And then I talked about the Ocula imaging service as well, right? So those can provide gross margin expansion opportunities.

Got it. And then switching over to SciTec, how should we think about the contract mix going forward? I think you talked about trying to do more fixed price there.

Yes. I think the way to look at it is our mix of spacecraft and launch for the rest of this year, you're probably looking at somewhere in 85% spacecraft for the remainder launch. That's how I view it.

Yes. And I would add that the whole acquisition of SciTec has been very successful. One of the things that we look at is not only strategy and culture and financials, but also synergies. And our larger Firefly platform has been able to successfully unlock a lot of the synergies of 1 plus 1 equals 4 kind of moments with SciTec, and you saw that with the Golden Dome award announcement in the second quarter. And also most recently, the GBRD program, that's a $94 million Phase 1 early phase program to look at the legacy radars that do missile warning, missile tracking and space domain awareness and then modernize that. Well, we're taking the FORGE playbook that's so successful and already battle tested and getting superior ratings from all the generals in the Pentagon. We're taking that and we're extending it, lifting and shifting it to other adjacent missions of phenomenologies like radar, and you could look at upside opportunities like air moving target indication and ground moving target indication and more, there's a lot of upside opportunities with what used to be the Space Development Agency in terms of the tracking layer tranches and the ground processing there. And then there's more golden dome outside opportunities as well. So FORGE has become a really large part of what we're going to do in the future with SciTec.

One moment for our last question. It comes from the line of Suji Desilva with ROTH Capital.

Apologize for the background noise here. Congrats on the progress. The backlog number, Darren, $1.5 billion, any color there? How much of that is Launch versus Spacecraft? And maybe also how much is covering the next 12 months to understand the near-term versus longer-term backlog?

Suji, good to hear from you. We haven't really broken that out. But when you look at it from a conversion perspective, this quarter, $117.7 million, pretty much all of that was backlog conversion. So when you look at that and kind of extrapolate where our $1.5 billion lands, like you can kind of see how far that stretches out. It's not exactly apples-to-apples because you have things like the Lockheed Martin multi-launch agreement mixed in there that extends through 2031. So it's not a straightforward answer, but you can give a rough ballpark by taking -- extrapolating Q2.

Okay. That's a very high conversion. Great. And then second question is on Elytra. Can you update us on the demand backlog there and pipeline? And maybe how much Elytra is contributing to revenue in the next -- second half of this year or next year, just to understand how that's coming into the revenue mix.

Suji, I'd like to unpack that in 2 parts. Maybe I'll start with the first part, which is the demand. You already see that we have an Elytra contract with the Defense Innovation Unit. That's clearly supporting space domain awareness and Rendezvous Proximity Operations. And it's very, very aligned with the White House executive order for Space Supremacy, where they're looking to advance capabilities for Department of war as well as involved commercial technology. We're doing all those things with our Sinequone mission. So that's progressing towards a launch no earlier than next year. And then in addition to that, each Blue Ghost 2, 3, 4 will have an Elytra transfer vehicle that will transfer the lander to their destination on the moon surface, but also serve as a long-haul communications relay and also host our commercially available Ocula imaging and mapping service. So those elects are progressing, as you know, on Blue Ghost Mission 2, we're stacking our Elytra. So that's the progress we're making there. And then MoonFall, we were put on contract by Jet Propulsion Laboratory for this flagship Moon-based program. It's moving really, really quickly because we have several electros in production. We're able to leverage the designs and the manufacturing and the supply chain for that vehicle that gives us confidence of meeting that very stringent schedule. But everything you need to do to go successfully burn several times to get to the Moon, to deploy those JPL drones is similar stuff that the Space Force needs to deploy high-value national security kind of constellations from GTO to GEO. We responded to a request for information recently, and we're progressing along with sharing information on our electro transfer vehicle to serve that fast transfer vehicle mission. So that's a new category that we want to continue working with the Space Force on.

Yes. I'd also add, I mean singling out the Elytra missions by itself, while we're very excited about these contracts that Jason talked about, including MoonFall, which will go to $75 million going through 2028, really doesn't do that product justice because when you look at it, Blue Ghost Mission 2 has an Elytra orbiter on there. right? So that contract in itself will be -- is a part of Elytra. And that allows us to really just leverage every R&D dollar on there and be really efficient about how we produce these vehicles.

And as I see no further questions in the queue, I will conclude the Q&A session and pass it back to Michael Sheetz for final comments.

Thank you all for attending today's call. We look forward to speaking with you all again when we report our third quarter results. Have a good one.

This concludes our conference. Thank you for participating, and you may now disconnect.