An artist’s rendering of AST SpaceMobile’s proposed new rocket, Blacklift. Graphic: AST SpaceMobile
Texas-based companies AST SpaceMobile and Firefly Aerospace announced a $1.3 billion agreement to license a rocket engine that will power a new, heavy-lift rocket starting in 2028, if all goes to plan.
The proposed launcher is called Blacklift and AST SpaceMobile classifies it as a 20-ton rocket, which would put it in the same category of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan.
Following the trend of SpaceX using its Falcon 9 rockets principally to launch its Starlink satellites, AST SpaceMobile will focus its launch capacity to fly its BlueBird satellites to orbit. The company said the rocket will be capable of launching five of its BlueBird satellites at a time.
“The Blacklift rocket is the springboard to significantly expand our total addressable market, providing AST SpaceMobile with regular unconstrained access to orbit and providing for most favorable owners’ economics in the industry,” said Abel Avellan, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of AST SpaceMobile. “This will accelerate our mission to build a new layer of global connectivity, extending connectivity beyond terrestrial networks and helping to bring AI-enabled services wherever people live, work and travel.”
Few details about the rocket itself were released alongside the announcement on Friday. Left unknown are things like hight, propellant tank sizes, and proposed launch site.
AST SpaceMobile also hasn’t described its plan for going from rendering to launch in the span of about two years. An analysis from Payload Space found that it historically takes about six years to go from the start of development to a successful first launch.
The company said it will host an “unveiling event” in New York City on Thursday, Nov. 12, which may fill in some of the blanks. The company also has a third quarter earnings call scheduled for Monday, Nov. 9, at 5 p.m. EST (2200 UTC) and may offer some details at that time as well.
In it’s announcement of the deal with AST SpaceMobile, Firefly said it would be delivering 27 Miranda engines and nine vacuum-variant Vira engines “for AST SpaceMobile’s first three rockets.” That suggests that the Blacklift first stage boosters will have nine Miranda engines each and three Vira engines on the upper stage.
For comparison, the medium-lift Eclipse rocket that Firefly is developing in partnership with Northrop Grumman features seven Miranda engines and one Vira engine. Under this new agreement, Firefly is providing a license for AST SpaceMobile to manufacture engines in the future.
The $1.3 billion agreement involves $800 million upfront from AST SpaceMobile, half of which comes in cash and the other half in Class A Common Stock. It will also pay Firefly $250 million for the 36 engines and another $250 million over the course of three years for engineering services.
“This is a bold transformational deal for Firefly, for AST SpaceMobile, and for the space industry,” said Jason Kim, CEO of Firefly Aerospace. “When a company sets out to build its own rocket, the engine is the hardest, highest-stakes decision they make, and AST SpaceMobile chose to partner with Firefly for its most powerful rocket engines.
“It’s a true win-win for both companies: AST SpaceMobile gets control of its own launch schedule, and Firefly gets added funds to rapidly expand our rocket production and reinforce the supply of launch vehicles to address record demand from the industry.”
Firefly said it has performed more than 175 hot fire tests of its Miranda engines, lasting more than 4,200 seconds. The Vira engine is still in development, but takes heritage from the Lightning engine, which powers the upper stages of Firefly’s Alpha rockets.
Neither engine has made its debut on an orbital flight. Firefly’s current public estimate of an inaugural launch with its Eclipse rocket is 2027.
Firefly plans to speak more about the deal with AST SpaceMobile during its third quarter earnings call, which is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 5 p.m. EST (2200 UTC).
