The private company that landed a vehicle on the moon in March plans to go public.
Firefly Aerospace, based in Cedar Park, near Austin, hopes to raise $16 million. Firefly’s value could rise to $5.5 billion if the IPO is successful.
Firefly’s Blue Ghost lander touched down on the lunar surface March 2 – Texas Independence Day – with scientific experiments and technical demos to the moon, under contract with NASA. This week, another NASA project was announced, with Firefly slated to land a ship near the lunar south pole in 2029.
The public offering, which will amount to 12% of Firefly, will be a test of whether space-related companies will find favor in the market. During the SPAC boom earlier this decade, aerospace companies used mergers with specially created ventures to take themselves public.
Firefly has several space platforms in testing or development. A low-Earth orbiter designed to take large payloads into space has had two successful test launches, while four others have faced technical difficulties, or failed to make orbit at all.
