Firefly Is Looking to Parlay Moon Landing Into Astronomical Valuation

A rendering of Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander and the UAE’s Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre’s Rashid 2 Rover on the lunar surface. (Courtesy Firefly)

The space technology start-up Firefly Aerospace recently scored a huge technical achievement. Now, the company is looking for a big valuation as it raises money to help it achieve more of the same.

Firefly is raising capital in an initial public offering. It plans to sell 16.2 million shares for between $35 and $39 a share. At the upper end of that range, the space start-up would be valued at about $5.6 billion, based on 143 million shares outstanding after the deal, assuming underwriters exercise their options to purchase additional common stock.

Investors might compare Firefly to Intuitive Machines , which has a market capitalization of about $2.4 billion. Intuitive Machines has flown to the moon twice, but has run into some technical problems.

Firefly’s Blue Ghost mission landed on the north side of the moon on March 2. Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander tackled the south pole regions in 2024. Its Athena lander landed near the south pole in 2025, but tipped over and failed to complete all mission objectives.

Both companies are part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services program. NASA is contracting with companies to take things to and from the moon, instead of building rockets and vehicles on its own. The goal is to increase cargo capacity and lower costs.

Intuitive Machines ended the first quarter with a backlog of about $270 million of work. Firefly reported about $1.1 billion in backlog as of March 31.

That difference accounts for much of the difference in valuation. Investors and investment bankers, for now, are valuing the companies based on how much uncompleted work they have on their books.

Neither company is profitable yet. Wall Street expects Intuitive Machines to generate an operating profit in 2026.

Its shares didn’t get a boost from the news about Firefly’s potential valuation. Intuitive stock closed down 8.4% at $11.75, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.3% and 0.5%, respectively.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com