00:00You did call your first quarter solid. It was a solid print. Have you any more updates to your full
00:05year guidance for us?
00:08No updates from what we said in first quarter. But what I would say is there's a lot of things
00:12that have changed just in this year.
00:15If you look at the moon, you know, NASA is going to go back to the moon with humans, with
00:21the Artemis program.
00:22And if you look at just three months ago, the NASA administrator said, hey, he's going to spend $20 billion
00:28on creating a moon base.
00:30And then within less than three months, he put companies on contract like Firefly.
00:35You saw that we won a $75 million JPL mission called Moonfall that JPL is leading.
00:41And we're going to support them with our electric spacecraft. So there's a lot of great catalysts like the moon.
00:47We're also in Golden Dome as well, one of the 12 contractors on the space-based interceptor program.
00:53And that's a growing area of interest by the Department of War.
00:58And then there's more things that we could do in space. We have a defense innovation unit contract called Cinequon
01:04that we're supporting to do space domain awareness processing in space with our electric spacecraft.
01:09So it's an exciting time for us.
01:11We were just talking about the SpaceX IPO, Jason, and I'm curious because you IPO-ed last year.
01:17A little bit of a wild time, of course, for anyone who IPOs the stock down nearly 20% year
01:22over year.
01:23But you are up more than 60% just year to date.
01:26What would you say to those who are IPO-ing or who might want to participate in an IPO?
01:32You know, did you hear a lot of comments from shareholders in your company after the IPO?
01:37And many of them negative, some positive, I'm sure.
01:40What I would say is that space is consequential.
01:44There's more and more happening in space, whether it's orbital data centers or national security reasons or the moon base
01:52and beyond.
01:53So it's a very growing area of investment.
01:57The ecosystem is continuing to grow on the moon as we speak.
02:03What I would say is that nothing's changed for our focus at Firefly.
02:06We're focused on execution and increasing our delivery cadence for our rockets, our satellites, our lunar landers, and now our
02:13AI defense software as well.
02:15You know, there was a little bit of setback to some of the space talks after the Blue Origin rocket
02:21explosion.
02:22And I'm curious, is that a major risk for a Firefly?
02:25You do some things that are similar to other companies in the space.
02:28If one has a problem, are you all tired with the same brush?
02:31Do you all see your stock prices and metrics and interests suffer?
02:36I think what it shows in the space industry is how challenging these missions are.
02:41And it's a huge moat to have your own launch capabilities.
02:45And Firefly has our own launch capabilities.
02:46So not only do we have the hardware stack, but we have the software stack.
02:51And we have the entire end-to-end ecosystem to launch our own satellites, build our own satellites, operate our
02:56own satellites.
02:56With applications on orbit, this is a challenging industry.
03:01And that's why we're focused on executing.
03:04Why do investors seem to be more interested in satellites and rocket companies, Jason?
03:09I mean, this obviously benefits you, right?
03:11But some of the companies that I was citing there have had bigger gains than others due to what they
03:16actually do.
03:17So, you know, if you're looking at Voyager, for example, it brings things to the moon to help out infrastructure
03:23-wise and stuff.
03:24So why the rockets?
03:26Why are they so interesting to people?
03:29Well, you can't get access to space without the rockets.
03:33It's incredibly hard to, you know, get out of Earth orbit and into LEO, MEO, Geosystem, and beyond.
03:42And so that's what we're able to do with our one-ton Alpha rocket that has done 24-hour responsive
03:47launches for the Space Force.
03:50And we have a number of contracts to do more of that.
03:54We're also doing hypersonic missile testing using our Alpha rocket as well.
03:59So we can get mission-unique payloads to their dedicated orbits very responsibly.
04:06And then we've got a 16-ton reusable rocket that we're co-developing with Northrop Grumman that will take even
04:11more national security constellations and commercial constellations,
04:15as well as potentially even lunar landers in the future.
04:19And so with that access to space, now you can start doing things in orbit, in space, on the moon,
04:25in Mars, once you get there with a launch vehicle.
04:30What about the $12 million share secondary offering?
04:33Can you give us more details about what you will do with the proceeds from that?
04:38Like we said in our roadshow there, what we're going to do is, you know, invest in our current programs
04:46and our new wins.
04:47We're always constantly improving our technologies, improving our reliability and repeatability and delivering our rockets, landers, and orbiters as well,
04:59as well as our defense software.
05:00So we're going to continue doubling down on those capabilities.
05:04As you saw from before, we were already investing in a larger capacity for all of our products.
05:13And so even before the Moon Base initiative, we were quadrupling our clean room space here in Cedar Park, Texas.
05:19And we have now 144,000 square foot campus here where we can rate up more landers, more orbiters, so
05:27we can increase the frequency of moon missions every year.
05:30Yeah.
05:31You've been talking about how you're going to benefit from funding increases to the Space Force budget.
05:36Which of your vehicles, which of your launchers are best positioned to benefit from any increases?
05:43If you look at it, we have multiple shots on goal for national security and Golden Dome kind of programs,
05:49whether it be our responsive launch capability with our Alpha rocket or launching national security constellations with our Eclipse rocket.
05:56And then our orbiters, they're capable of taking ample payload capacity to orbit, and they have high maneuverability and high
06:06thrust and a lot of fuel on board, so they can do a lot of sustainable, long-lasting missions for
06:12the Space Force.
06:13And then our SciTech defense AI software, it's really helpful for things like Golden Dome because the threats are quick,
06:21they're maneuverable, and they're lethal.
06:23And the AI really helps to defeat and deter those type of threats.
06:28Jason, we might be a little bit away from this yet, but I'm curious, do you think at some point
06:33there will be some consolidation in the industry, given that some companies are doing the same thing and maybe don't
06:39have a huge economic moat?
06:41I can't speak for other companies, but for Firefly, we have a multi-year strategy, and we're just executing it.
06:48And it's about improving our technologies, delivering them repeatedly, reliably, as we launch, land, and operate more and more.
06:57And we have a lot of tailwinds behind us with the Moon-based initiative, with launch and launching constellations, as
07:06well as orbiters to do national security and space exploration missions.
07:10And then you add to it our capability to do AI software now on those platforms.
Comments