NASA funds Cedar Park-based Firefly Aerospace to deliver drones to lunar South Pole

Firefly Aerospace working with NASA on lunar drones

NASA’s plans to establish a permanent base on the moon are getting a boost from Central Texas.

CEDAR PARK, Texas - NASA’s plans to establish a permanent base on the moon are getting a boost from Central Texas.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory awarded Cedar Park-based Firefly Aerospace Inc. a $75 million subcontract to deliver four specialized drones directly to the lunar South Pole.

The initiative, named the MoonFall mission, is part of the initial phase of NASA’s Moon Base program. The long-term infrastructure project aims to enable a sustained human presence and expand scientific and commercial operations on the moon.

What they're saying:

"We're just proud to be a Texas company, making Texas proud, making America proud," Firefly Aerospace CEO Jason Kim said.

The mission will rely on Firefly’s Elytra spacecraft, configured in its high-capacity "Elytra Dark" setup, to carry out the 45-day transit from Earth. Upon entering lunar orbit, the spacecraft will perform a braking maneuver to deploy the four drones approximately 31 miles (50 kilometers) above the surface.

Because the moon lacks an atmosphere, standard rotor-based drones cannot fly. Instead, the vehicles will use rocket-powered, propulsive "hops" to navigate treacherous and historically hard-to-reach craters.

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"What is changing now in the industry is the quality of data the drones can collect," said Shihao Fu, a technology analyst with IDTechEx.

Equipped with high-definition optical cameras and scientific instruments, the drones will explore permanently shadowed regions to search for vital resources like water ice. The mapping will also identify safe landing spots to support future human missions under NASA's Artemis program.

"We envision the moon base to be hundreds of square miles with different assets all building up to the objective of permanent lunar presence on the moon," said Carlos García-Galán, a program executive for the moon base.

The MoonFall project is not Firefly's only deep-space venture. The company is currently managing three other lunar missions under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative.

"We're funded by NASA on what's called the Commercial Lunar Payload Services, which means that we're expected to take commercial providers to the moon," said Kevin Scholtes, a future systems architect at Firefly. "What's really important here is proving that there is an industry and an economy for taking payloads to the moon."

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A lunar lander built right here in Central Texas is now on the moon.

The growing manifest of deep-space contracts has driven a rapid expansion of Firefly's Central Texas manufacturing facility. The company is scaling up its cleanroom operations to build an active assembly line for automated spacecraft production.

If successful, the drones are scheduled to operate for up to 14 Earth days, the equivalent of a single lunar day. After their final propulsive flights, specialized "survive-the-night" hardware on the vehicles will allow them to continue broadcasting data back to Earth for several months.

The launch for the MoonFall mission is targeted for no earlier than 2028.