Firefly Aerospace (FLY.US) revenue surged 259% in the third quarter, and the backlog of orders reached a record $1.7 billion, but adjusted EBITDA losses increased at the same time

The Zhitong Finance App learned that the space and defense technology company Firefly Aerospace (FLY.US) released financial results for the third quarter of 2026 after the market on November 11, Beijing time. This “space upstart”, which only landed on the NASDAQ in August of this year, handed over a report card with a 259% year-on-year increase in revenue, and the backlog of orders also set a record of 1.7 billion US dollars; however, the company's cash consumption rate is also accelerating. After listing, the stock price has fallen from a high point to a low of nearly 52 weeks, and the market is increasingly strict about pricing its “high growth and high cost” model.

Revenue is growing rapidly, and losses are still growing

According to financial reports, the company's third-quarter revenue was US$117.7 million, up 259% from US$30.8 million in the same period last year; gross profit was US$25.3 million, and gross margin was about 22.9%. However, the expenditure side expanded faster: R&D expenses of US$76 million and sales and management expenses of US$50.9 million, which together far exceeded the gross profit scale, with operating losses of US$101.6 million during the quarter. GAAP net loss of US$94.2 million, or loss of $0.56 per share (net loss of US$133.4 million and loss of US$1.50 per share for the same period of the previous year); non-GAAP net loss of US$75.4 million (loss of $0.45 per share, better than market expectations of US$0.60); adjusted EBITDA was a loss of US$69.5 million, an increase from US$46.3 million in the same period last year.

In terms of cash flow, operating cash flow for the quarter was negative 69.7 million US dollars, and free cash flow was negative 85.3 million US dollars; cumulative free cash flow for the first nine months of this year was negative 270 million US dollars. As of September 30, the company held US$409.3 million in cash and US$125.4 million in short-term investments, with a total liquidity of approximately US$535 million. The company gave revenue guidance for the full year 2026 of US$440 million to US$450 million — based on this calculation, revenue for the fourth quarter would need to reach about US$130 million to US$140 million, continuing to increase month-on-month.

The $1.7 billion backlog goes hand in hand

The company's backlog of orders reached 1.7 billion US dollars at the end of the third quarter, a record (1.5 billion US dollars at the end of the previous quarter). In terms of launch business, the company extended Lockheed Martin's multi-launch agreement until 2031 for up to 25 Alpha Block II launches; signed two commercial alpha launch contracts at the Esrange Space Center with Sweden — these are Firefly's first batch of European launch contracts; previously, it also signed a multi-launch agreement with the Japanese SAR satellite company Synthetic up to 10 alpha launches in 2030, and received a third hypersonic mission order from a confidential customer.

In the lunar landing and spacecraft business, the company has promoted five lunar missions in parallel. The clean room expansion funded by the Texas Space Commission has been completed and put into operation, and up to 12 lunar landers and orbiters can be assembled and integrated at the same time; the company won the first Mars contract — a $13 million subcontract to manufacture air cases for the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) SkyFall mission, with the goal of launching by the end of 2028; and was shortlisted on NASA's CLPS 2 program supplier list worth 10 billion US dollars to compete for large-scale cargo lander mission orders.

The defense business (subsidiary SciTec) was also intensively implemented: it was awarded a $94 million ground-based radar digitization contract from the Space Force, shortlisted for the $981 million NITE-STAR IDIQ contract supplier list (mission order until 2032), the FORGE missile warning system reached an operational milestone, the US Air Force Cloud Command and Control (CBC2) contract was extended to expand anti-drone sensing integration, and was also awarded the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) Elytra off-orbit system design contract.

The biggest highlight: AST SpaceMobile's $1.3 billion strategic partnership

The most important recent order comes from AST SpaceMobile, a direct-satellite mobile phone company — the two sides signed contracts worth more than $1.3 billion, covering authorized intellectual property rights, engine delivery and engineering support. This means that Firefly's Miranda engine will become the power core of the AST self-developed rocket Blacklift (Blacklift is a 20-ton reusable rocket, scheduled to be launched by the end of 2028, to launch up to 5 Bluebird satellites at a time), and Firefly will be further upgraded from a “launch service provider” to an external exporter of rocket engines and technology. At present, Miranda engine certification tests have begun, and more than 170 hot ignition tests have been completed, paving the way for the first flight of the Eclipse medium rocket.

CEO Jason Kim (Jason Kim) said, “Firefly's third quarter demonstrated the power of our diversified, vertically integrated business model. With five missions to the Moon progressing in parallel, Alpha Block II moving towards launch, SciTec implementing critical national security projects, and a strategic partnership with AST SpaceMobile, we are turning pipelines and backlog orders into results.” The company also signed a commercial partnership with Starcloud to demonstrate advanced AI computing in lunar orbit—becoming the first commercial customer of Firefly's lunar data center capabilities.

Firefly's earnings report shows a typical picture of a “order first, revenue catch-up, loss in exchange for production capacity”: 259% revenue growth, $1.7 billion backlog, and AST's strategic binding of over 1.3 billion US dollars are enough to support the growth narrative; however, net loss of $283 million in the first nine months, loss of free cash flow of $270 million, and working capital reserves of about $535 million mean that the company must turn orders into revenue before it runs out of cash — can Miranda deliver more than 130 million US dollars in quarterly revenue in the fourth quarter, Miranda The assessment and whether the first flight of Eclipse can proceed as scheduled will directly determine whether the market will continue to pay for this story.

It is worth noting that the company's stock price has previously fallen from a 52-week high of $62.17 to around $17. How the market responds to this “high growth+high cost of money” questionnaire after this financial report is worth keeping a close eye on.