Award enables Firefly to bid on payload processing facilities and services for NASA missions at Vandenberg Space Force Base
CEDAR PARK, Texas, Aug. 17, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Firefly Aerospace (Nasdaq: FLY), a market leading space and defense technology company, today announced it was awarded a Spacecraft Processing Operations Contract from NASA. This award positions Firefly to compete for task orders providing payload processing facilities and services in support of NASA missions launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB).
“Firefly is operating one of the few commercial payload processing facilities supporting West Coast missions, and we’re excited to offer this as a commercial service to our partners at NASA. This capability helps alleviate critical bottlenecks in the industry and accelerates the timeline between payload arrival and liftoff for government and commercial customers,” said Adam Oakes, Vice President of Launch at Firefly Aerospace. “Reliable access to space depends on more than rockets — it depends on the infrastructure that gets payloads ready to fly, and our ready-to-use procession and fueling facility is filling that void.”
Firefly’s commercially available Payload Processing Facility (PPF), located within 0.5 miles of the company’s Space Launch Complex 2 on the north end of VSFB, supports government and commercial space payloads. Equipped with a storage area, control room, workspace, airlock, and ISO 8 cleanroom, the facility can accommodate storage, fueling, and checkouts of small and medium-size payloads and hypergolic spacecraft.
Under the contract, Firefly is eligible to provide commercial payload processing services to support payload processing, fueling, integration, and encapsulation for NASA missions ahead of launch. The award recognizes Firefly’s growing launch infrastructure and reinforces the company’s role as a trusted provider supporting NASA’s mission portfolio. The award further adds to Firefly’s exiting launch agreements with NASA, including missions for NASA’s Quicksounder and INCUS satellites set to launch on Firefly’s Alpha rocket.
About Firefly Aerospace
Firefly Aerospace is a space and defense technology company on a mission to reliably and repeatedly launch, land, and operate space systems from Earth to the Moon and beyond. As the partner of choice for responsive space missions, Firefly is the first commercial company to launch a satellite to orbit with approximately 24-hour notice and the first to achieve a successful landing on the Moon. Established in 2017, Firefly’s engineering, manufacturing, and test facilities are co-located in central Texas to enable rapid innovation and vertical integration for the company’s small- to medium-lift launch vehicles, lunar landers, and orbital vehicles. For more information, visit www.fireflyspace.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains “forward-looking statements” including, but not limited to, statements regarding Firefly’s facilities, award positioning, partnerships with NASA, statements of Firefly’s VP of launch, and other statements regarding Firefly’s future expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, financial condition, assumptions, future events, or performance that are not historical facts. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as “position,” “help,” “may,” “pave,” “will,” “expects,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “could,” “would,” “target”, “set,” “intends,” “support,” and “believes.” There may also be negative words or other similar terms or expressions that concern our expectations, strategy, plans, or intentions. Not all forward-looking statements contain such identifying words. The inclusion of forward-looking statements should not be regarded as a representation that such plans, estimates, or expectations will be achieved.
Various risks that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed by the forward-looking statements included in this press release include, but are not limited to: our failure to manage our growth effectively, including the increasing technological complexity of our business, and our ability to achieve and maintain profitability; the potential for delayed or failed launches, and any failure of our launch vehicles and spacecraft to operate as intended; our inability to deliver software on time or of a quality that our customers demand; the hazards and operational risks that our products and service offerings are exposed to, including the wide and unique range of risks due to the unpredictability of space; the inability to realize our backlog; the fluctuation of our operating results; adverse publicity stemming from any incident involving us, our competitors, or our customers; the failure to adequately protect our proprietary intellectual property rights; our inability to comply with our contractual obligations; and other risk factors set forth in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements contained herein, which speak only as of the date hereof. These statements are based on management’s current expectations, assumptions, and beliefs concerning future developments, which are inherently subject to uncertainties, risks, and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict. We cannot assure you that the events reflected in the forward-looking statements will occur; actual events could differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. We undertake no intent or obligation to publicly update or revise any of the estimates and other forward-looking statements made in this announcement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.
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