00:00We've focused a lot on launch providers, on rocket companies, and it's interesting to bring Firefly to our audience.
00:08Curiously, as a public company, how would you summarize life as a public company right now, Jason?
00:15Well, nothing's changed. Our culture has always been about the mission and supporting our customers.
00:21We are a space and defense company that supports the hardest missions in space for national security, commercial tech, as
00:28well as space exploration.
00:30So we continue to focus on execution, and we just are coming off of the last week's successful Alpha Flight
00:397 launch that was flawless.
00:41And we're building on that momentum as we build our second moon lander, Blue Ghost Mission 2 for NASA.
00:49As you know, we were the first commercial company to successfully land on the moon last year.
00:55And we're going to build upon that momentum by our second Blue Ghost Mission to the far side of the
01:03moon this time.
01:04And if you heard the NASA Administrator, Jared Isaacman, he wants to take these robotic lander missions and do it
01:11every month starting next year.
01:13And so that's a huge upside opportunity for Firefly.
01:18To summarize, you know, we're showing Alpha right now.
01:21But if you split it into parts, you launch rockets, you build lunar landers, you develop space vehicles that move
01:28satellites in orbit, right?
01:30And you reflected on some of your defense work as well.
01:34Which is the biggest priority for you right now?
01:37What does the balance of this year hold?
01:40And if you remember, we also acquired our Cytec subsidiary.
01:44They're an AI software company that develops not only the software applications, but the framework that go on the terrestrial
01:54data centers.
01:55So if you think about it, we have the capability, the entire space ecosystem, to launch our satellites, build and
02:02operate our satellites on orbit, and now process that data using the Cytec AI algorithms on orbit.
02:08And that's huge because there's a lot of emphasis on space-based orbital data centers.
02:15There's a lot of emphasis and reignited focus on the moon.
02:21And there's also a lot of upside opportunity with things like Golden Dome.
02:27So we have all the entire ecosystem to make those programs into reality.
02:33What's interesting, Jason, about Firefly Aerospace has really been how you're able to focus on the price and the operational
02:40efficiency at this moment when it comes to NASA making this all much more competitive and the idea that we're
02:47going to do this at a cut cost.
02:48How are the supply chains, how are you finding the ability to create margin, be able to put these lunar
02:52landers there without explosive costs?
02:56I think it's because of the commercial advanced technology that we bring to the table.
03:01You know, on the first Blue Ghost Mission 1 that successfully landed on the moon last March and did 14
03:07days of surface operations for NASA, that was around $100 million.
03:13And if you remember, there are five nation states that did it before us successfully, and they had a billion
03:18-dollar budget.
03:19So for at least one-tenth of the budget, we were able to successfully land autonomously on the ground.
03:26On the moon's surface.
03:28We are doing really well with our supply chain.
03:32But I think what would help even more is we're in discussions with NASA about block buys.
03:37If NASA wants to do monthly cadence of these robotic missions to the South Pole of the moon starting next
03:43year, well, block buys really helps you with making your supply chain demand more predictable and stable and hold strategic
03:52inventory.
03:53So I think that's a key factor and driver to make things better for the supply chain and for Firefly
04:03and for NASA in the future.
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