AMSTERDAM — Northrop Grumman is investing $50 million into Firefly Aerospace to further development of a medium-lift launch vehicle with a new name.
The companies announced May 29 that Northrop would invest $50 million in Firefly, joining a $175 million Series D round that Firefly announced in November. That round valued Firefly at more than $2 billion.
The investment will go towards development of a launch vehicle formerly known as MLV and now known as Eclipse. The medium-class launch vehicle is designed to place up to 16,300 kilograms into low Earth orbit.
“Eclipse gives customers the right balance between payload capacity and affordability,” Wendy Williams, vice president and general manager of launch and missile defense systems at Northrop Grumman, said in a statement.
Eclipse builds upon the existing partnership between Firefly and Northrop on the Antares 330, which replaces the Ukrainian-built first stage of the earlier Antares variant with one developed by Firefly. Eclipse will use that same Firefly-developed first stage along with a new upper stage and a larger payload fairing.
“Firefly is incredibly grateful for Northrop Grumman’s investment that further solidifies our first-of-its-kind partnership to build the first stage of Antares 330 and jointly develop Eclipse,” Jason Kim, chief executive of Firefly, said in a statement.
While Antares 330 is an interim vehicle intended primarily to launch Cygnus cargo vehicles to the International Space Station, Firefly is targeting broader uses for Eclipse, including national security space. That would be done through the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 3 contract, whose Lane 1 is intended for newer vehicles that don’t have the performance to carry out all national security missions in the contract.
“With a 16 metric ton to orbit capability, Eclipse is a sweet spot for programs like NSSL Lane 1,” Kim said.
The U.S. Space Force can on-ramp new vehicles onto Lane 1, and did so in March when it added Rocket Lab’s Neutron and Stoke Space’s Nova medium-lift vehicles under development. The Space Force said it will seek proposals to add additional vehicles to the contract early in fiscal year 2026.
The companies provided few additional details about the status of Eclipse’s development, noting continued testing of the Miranda engine that will be used in its first stage as well as development of other flight hardware for the rocket. The first launch of Eclipse is scheduled for no earlier than 2026 from Wallops Island, Virginia.
Northrop sees growth in launch, not NASA
The announcement of the investment took place a day after Northop Grumman’s chief executive, Kathy Warden, spoke at Bernstein’s 41st Annual Strategic Decisions Conference. She did not mention the investment or the ongoing work with Firefly but said the company saw growth opportunities in launch from its work providing solid rocket boosters for United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur.
“Our space business has mostly been for the U.S. government. There is some opportunity for international expansion in space, which would be forward growth. It has not been a key contributor up until this point,” she said.
One space segment where the company does not expect growth is its work with NASA, “based on what we’re hearing about NASA budgets,” she said. “But, that’s a relatively small portion of our space portfolio today.”
That portfolio does include providing the twin solid rocket boosters for the Space Launch System and the HALO module for the lunar Gateway, as well as Cygnus cargo missions for the ISS. The “skinny budget” released in early May by the White House would cancel Gateway and end SLS after the Artemis 3 mission, while cutting the operating budget of the ISS.
“It’s not that it’s a low priority,” she said of the company’s NASA work, “but it has been a relatively small portion of our portfolio even now, and we expect, as I said, that it will not be a growth driver for us. So, in that regard, it’s not an area we would invest significantly in.”
“NASA has an important mission,” she added. “It’s just not going to be as well-resourced in the foreseeable future, based on what we’re hearing.”
