Firefly Aerospace announces contract with L3Harris for up to 20 launches on Alpha rocket

A streak shot of Firefly Aerospace’s fifth launch of its Alpha rocket on a mission named “Noise of Summer.” Image: Firefly Aerospace/Sean Parker

Coming on the heels of another large launch deal, Firefly Aerospace announced it sold up to 20 flights on its Alpha rocket to L3Harris. The agreement would see these missions fly between 2027 and 2031.

Under the deal, Firefly would provide between two to four Alpha rockets per year based on the readiness and need from L3Harris. The agreement comes in addition to a three-launch contract with L3Harris for launches in 2026.

“The Firefly team is proud to build on our existing relationship with L3Harris and serve as a long-term launch provider for their robust satellite systems,” said Peter Schumacher, Interim CEO at Firefly Aerospace, in a statement. “Firefly continues to see growing demand for Alpha’s responsive small-lift services, and we’re committed to providing a dedicated launch option that takes our customers directly to their preferred orbits.”

The deal is the first major announcement for the company since its former CEO, Bill Weber, stepped down abruptly in mid-July. Schumacher is serving as the interim CEO while the board continues its search for a permanent replacement.

The satellites launching on these nearly two dozen missions haven’t been announced publicly, but when Firefly announced the three-launch deal in 2023, Weber described the payloads as being “satellite systems that advance our national security.”

All of these missions will launch from Space Launch Complex-2 (SLC-2) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

Firefly’s announcement on Wednesday comes about two months after it announced another an agreement with Lockheed Martin for 15 Alpha launches with the option to add up to 10 additional launches.

The first of these will be the next launch for Firefly as well as the sixth launch of an Alpha rocket. FLT006 will launch from SLC-2 at Vandenberg. Unlike the L3Harris agreement, Firefly plans to launch the missions for Lockheed Martin from both the east and west coasts.

Those East Coast missions will launch from Pad-0A at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) within NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The breakdown of how many missions will launch from which coast hasn’t been announced.