AST SpaceMobile Plans Its Own Rocket, Blacklift, on Firefly Engines: What It Means for Launch

As of November 7, 2026: AST SpaceMobile said on November 6 that it will build its own 20-ton rocket, named Blacklift, "designed for reusability" and targeted to begin launching up to five of its BlueBird satellites at a time "starting in late 2028." The engine designs come from Firefly Aerospace. Firefly will deliver 27 Miranda engines and nine vacuum-variant Vira engines for the first three rockets, and AST SpaceMobile will acquire a perpetual license to manufacture both engines itself. Firefly values the agreement at "more than $1.3 billion." Neither engine has yet flown on an orbital launch, Spaceflight Now reported. AST SpaceMobile plans to unveil the rocket in New York City on November 12. The 2028 date is a target. This is SpaceNexus analysis of the deal, what has to go right and what it could change.

What AST SpaceMobile announced

In its press release, furnished to the SEC as Exhibit 99.1 to a Form 8-K, AST SpaceMobile said the rocket "will be custom-built by AST SpaceMobile" and is "uniquely designed for simple, mission-specific, repetitive launch to low Earth orbit, using simple, tested fuels and materials." Firefly will deliver engines for the first three Blacklift rockets and provide engineering services over three years, and AST SpaceMobile will produce the licensed engines itself "at a new engine manufacturing facility in the United States." It did not say where.

Ars Technica reported that nine Miranda engines will power Blacklift's first stage. Spaceflight Now drew the same conclusion from the engine count. Neither company has stated the configuration. AST SpaceMobile calls Blacklift a 20-ton rocket; Firefly's release calls it a "heavy-lift rocket," and Ars Technica described it as medium-lift. Spaceflight Now said the 20-ton rating "would put it in the same category of SpaceX's Falcon 9 and United Launch Alliance's Vulcan."

AST SpaceMobile President Scott Wisniewski said in the release: "The Miranda engine will allow us to leapfrog the traditional five-to-ten-year development cycle as we build Blacklift."

The Firefly side: engines, a license and the money

The engine. Firefly says Miranda is a 230,000 lbf thrust engine that "has performed over 175 hot fire tests for more than 4,200 seconds, including a flight-like test at 110% performance." Firefly completed the first Miranda hot fire in November 2023. The Vira upper-stage engine "is still in development," Spaceflight Now reported, and draws on the Lightning engine of Firefly's Alpha rocket.

Eclipse has not flown yet. That rocket, which Firefly is developing with Northrop Grumman, uses seven Miranda engines and one Vira, Spaceflight Now reported. Firefly's Eclipse page calls it a "Next Generation Medium Launch Vehicle" with its first flight "scheduled to launch no earlier than 2027." In November 2023, Firefly said the Medium Launch Vehicle it was co-developing with Northrop Grumman "will first launch in late 2025." (See how often launch dates slip.)

The money, as stated in the release. Under the license agreement, AST SpaceMobile "will pay approximately $800 million in upfront consideration, comprised of $400 million in cash and 10 to 14 million shares of Class A Common Stock, as determined by a forward VWAP calculation." Under a separate supply and services agreement, it "will pay $250 million for the delivery of engines for its first three rocket launches and $250 million over a three-year period for engineering support services."

Who keeps what. Firefly "retains full ownership of its engine intellectual property and will continue to serve the broader government and commercial launch market," and says the agreement "is non-competitive by design." Firefly CEO Jason Kim called the deal "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."

Why AST SpaceMobile says it is doing this

Abel Avellan, AST SpaceMobile's founder, chairman and CEO, said in the release: "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." The company says the rocket "completes AST SpaceMobile's long-held strategy to achieve end-to-end vertical integration." BlueBirds are "now in production through BlueBird 51" in Midland, Texas.

Earlier filings and reports show the launch pressure:

• April 19: on the New Glenn 3 mission, BlueBird 7 "was placed into a lower than planned orbit by the upper stage of the launch vehicle" and was to be de-orbited, with its cost expected to be recovered under insurance. AST SpaceMobile still targeted "approximately 45 satellites in orbit by the end of 2026."
• May: a destructive launch pad explosion stopped New Glenn flights. Blue Origin now plans to return New Glenn to flight in January, Ars Technica reported, citing Bloomberg.
• July 15: "based on the Company's current expectations regarding launch availability," AST SpaceMobile said it was targeting "approximately 45 of its BlueBird satellites" in early 2027. The same day it proposed a $1.0 billion convertible notes offering, partly to "secure additional access to orbit," including "partnerships and/or acquisitions to further vertically integrate its business and mitigate risks associated with third-party launch providers." It had no such agreements then.

AST SpaceMobile has launched 13 BlueBirds to date, eight of them Block 2, on three different rockets, Space.com reported. It will keep using outside rockets, "with agreements now covering in total over 100 BlueBird satellites to be deployed cumulatively between 2027 and 2028."

Ars Technica's Eric Berger asked: "If AST already has agreements covering the deployment of more than 100 BlueBird satellites by the end of 2028, what precisely is Blacklift supposed to accomplish?" The release points further out: Wisniewski said the in-house capability would serve customers across "an expanded total addressable market beyond direct-to-device including USG radar, USG secure communications, IoT, federal emergency, AI edge compute and additional funded networks." (Analysis: on AST SpaceMobile's own figures, deployment through 2028 rests mostly on outside rockets. Blacklift, if it flies on schedule, would mainly serve the years after that and the wider set of networks Wisniewski lists.)

What has to go right

• The schedule. Late 2028 is about two years from the announcement. Ars Technica reported that SpaceX holds the record for the fastest time to orbit for a new medium-lift rocket, with a Falcon 9 development time of 4.7 years, and that ULA's Vulcan took 8.7 years. Of five medium- and heavy-lift rockets Ars listed that other US companies have announced since 2015 (Vulcan, Rocket Lab's Neutron, Relativity Space's Terran R, Firefly and Northrop Grumman's Eclipse and Stoke Space's Nova), only Vulcan has reached orbit, Ars wrote. Ars left out Blue Origin's much larger New Glenn. Spaceflight Now cited a Payload analysis that "it historically takes about six years to go from the start of development to a successful first launch." Payload called late 2028 "an incredibly aggressive timeline," and Berger wrote that the claim is "profoundly disconnected from the historical record of every comparable rocket development program this century."
• Engines are a head start, not a rocket. Berger wrote that engines "are typically the hardest part of a rocket's development" and that buying Miranda will save time, "But it will probably be a year or two, not five." Buying the engine "does not eliminate the enormous engineering, manufacturing, testing, and regulatory effort required to develop a medium-lift rocket." And Firefly's own date for Eclipse's first launch has moved from late 2025 to no earlier than 2027.
• The missing basics. Spaceflight Now noted that the height, propellant tank sizes and proposed launch site are undisclosed, and said the November 12 event "may fill in some of the blanks."
• Reuse. (Analysis: "designed for reusability" is a design goal. The release does not say how the stages would be recovered.)

There is a case for the plan too. AST SpaceMobile says it operates "over 500,000 square feet of manufacturing and operations facilities worldwide, supported by a 2,250+ workforce." And its release says Firefly "has demonstrated repeated launch success to orbit with its Alpha rocket." Space.com reported in March 2026 that Alpha had "managed full mission success just three times in its seven orbital launch attempts"; as of November 7, 2026, Alpha had not launched again, according to Launch Library 2. (Analysis: a heavily tested engine plus three years of its maker's engineering support is a faster start than designing an engine from scratch. Whether it closes the gap to late 2028 is the open question.)

What it means for the launch market

Caleb Henry, director of research at Quilty Space, said the launch crisis "will not go away this decade for sure, and it might not abate until sometime late in the 2030s," Ars Technica's Rocket Report noted. The Rocket Report listed the causes Quilty blamed, among them "developmental delays in a new generation of rockets" and "the retirement of the Falcon 9 as a rocket for commercial service." (Falcon 9 is still flying. SpaceX has said it plans to phase out the Falcon 9 after its Starship megarocket gets up and running, Space.com noted.)

Berger wrote that constellation operators "need to secure launch capacity years in advance," and if they cannot on favorable terms, "they are now considering taking the extraordinary step of developing their own rockets." Space.com noted the news came 10 days after Cowboy Space unveiled Big Iron, a rocket for its planned AI data centers, also targeting 2028. Payload noted that Starlink, a top competitor, already has in-house launch through SpaceX, and that Blacklift could level the playing field if it can be built quickly and successfully. (Analysis: if Blacklift flies, fewer BlueBirds would need seats on other companies' rockets, which matters in a market Quilty expects to stay short of launches.)

What it means for Firefly

Firefly says the funds let it "quickly expand hiring, procure long-lead materials, source optimal equipment, and fortify infrastructure, including multiple new test bays in Briggs, Texas, to increase its own launch vehicle production and testing." (Analysis: Firefly now has Miranda engines to build for both Eclipse and Blacklift, so test-stand and production capacity in Briggs is the thing to watch.)

Nothing in this article is a view on AST SpaceMobile or Firefly Aerospace shares or any other security.

What to watch

• November 9 and 10: AST SpaceMobile's third-quarter business update call (November 9) and Firefly's third-quarter earnings call (November 10), where Firefly says it will discuss the agreement.
• November 12: the Blacklift unveiling in New York City, webcast by AST SpaceMobile. Watch for the launch site, height, tank sizes and recovery plan.
• Eclipse's first flight, scheduled for no earlier than 2027.
• New Glenn's return to flight, planned for January, and BlueBird launches under AST SpaceMobile's existing agreements.

Sources

All accessed November 7, 2026.

• AST SpaceMobile: "AST SpaceMobile to Build Own 20-Ton Rocket to Deploy BlueBird Satellites in Low Earth Orbit Using Miranda Engines from Firefly Aerospace" (press release, Exhibit 99.1 to Form 8-K, November 6, 2026)
• Firefly Aerospace: "Firefly Aerospace Signs Rocket Engine Deal Valued at More Than $1.3 Billion with AST SpaceMobile" (November 6, 2026)
• AST SpaceMobile: Form 8-K on the BlueBird 7 launch (April 2026)
• AST SpaceMobile: Form 8-K and convertible notes offering release (July 15, 2026)
• Firefly Aerospace: Eclipse (vehicle page) and "Firefly Aerospace Completes First Miranda Engine Hot Fire Test" (November 28, 2023)
• Firefly Aerospace: "Northrop Grumman Invests $50 Million in Firefly Aerospace to Advance Medium Launch Vehicle Named Eclipse™" (May 29, 2025)
• Space.com: "Firefly Aerospace's Alpha rocket reaches orbit on 1st launch since explosive accidents last year (video)" (Josh Dinner, March 12, 2026) and Launch Library 2: Firefly Aerospace launches after March 12, 2026
• AST SpaceMobile: "AST SpaceMobile to Host Third Quarter 2026 Business Update Call on November 9, 2026" (Business Wire, October 26, 2026)
• Spaceflight Now: "AST SpaceMobile unveils $1.3 billion engine deal with Firefly Aerospace to power new heavy-lift rocket" (Will Robinson-Smith, November 7, 2026)
• Ars Technica: "You know the launch market is tough when satellite companies start building rockets" (Eric Berger, November 6, 2026)
• Ars Technica: Rocket Report, Edition 9.18 (Stephen Clark, November 6, 2026; New Glenn and Quilty Space items)
• Space.com: "AST SpaceMobile announces new 'Blacklift' rocket, targets 2028 launch debut" (Mike Wall, November 6, 2026)
• Payload: "AST SpaceMobile To Build New Blacklift Rocket" (Jacqueline Feldscher, November 6, 2026)
• SpaceNexus: AST SpaceMobile profile, Firefly Aerospace profile and launch slip explorer