AST SpaceMobile said on 6 November that it will build its own 20-ton rocket, named Blacklift, and has signed an agreement with Firefly Aerospace for engines, engineering support and a perpetual license to manufacture Firefly’s Miranda and Vira engines, according to its release. Firefly’s release puts the deal at more than $1.3 billion.
The share part of the upfront payment, 10 million to 14 million AST shares, would be worth $302 million to $423 million at AST’s 5 November close of $30.20, by our arithmetic. AST says the share count will be set by a forward VWAP calculation, so the final number is not yet fixed.
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The key insight: As we read the two releases, AST SpaceMobile is paying about $800 million upfront for the right to make Firefly’s engines itself, plus $500 million for engines and engineering, and at its 5 November close the share part of the upfront payment would be worth $302 million to $423 million, by our arithmetic.
Under the license agreement, AST says it “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”. Under a separate supply and services agreement, AST says it will pay $250 million for the delivery of engines for its first three rocket launches and $250 million over three years for engineering support services.
Firefly says it will deliver 27 Miranda engines and nine vacuum-variant Vira engines for AST’s first three rockets, 36 engines in all. That is nine Miranda and three Vira engines per rocket, and an average of about $6.9 million per engine under the $250 million supply payment, by our arithmetic.
The $400 million cash component equals 17.5% of the $2,288 million of cash and cash equivalents AST reported at 30 June 2026 in its quarterly filing, by our arithmetic. AST has not yet filed its third-quarter report.
AST SpaceMobile’s payments to Firefly Aerospace by component, in millions of dollars, from AST’s release of 6 November 2026. The share component, 10 million to 14 million shares, is valued at AST’s 5 November Nasdaq close of $30.20, $302 million to $423 million by our arithmetic; the bar shows the midpoint.
What Blacklift Is Meant to Do
AST says the rocket “will be custom-built by AST SpaceMobile and designed for reusability, enabling up to five BlueBird satellites per launch starting in late 2028”. AST says it will make the engines at a new engine manufacturing facility in the United States.
The company says it will keep using outside launchers: “agreements now covering in total over 100 BlueBird satellites to be deployed cumulatively between 2027 and 2028”. AST says it will unveil Blacklift at an event in New York on 12 November.
Chief executive Abel Avellan said Blacklift would give AST “regular unconstrained access to orbit” and help “bring AI-enabled services wherever people live, work and travel”. President Scott Wisniewski listed markets beyond direct-to-device, including “USG radar, USG secure communications, IoT, federal emergency, AI edge compute and additional funded networks”.
What Firefly Says
Firefly chief executive Jason Kim called it “a bold transformational deal for Firefly, for AST SpaceMobile, and for the space industry”. Firefly says it “retains full ownership of its engine intellectual property” and will use the money to add hiring, long-lead materials and new test bays in Briggs, Texas. It says Miranda has run more than 175 hot-fire tests for over 4,200 seconds.
AST’s stock fell 26.3% between its 30 October close of $40.97 and its 5 November close of $30.20, Nasdaq data show, by our arithmetic. Firefly says it will discuss the deal on its third-quarter call on 10 November.
As we read the license terms, the share count moves with AST’s stock: AST says 10 million to 14 million shares will be set by a forward VWAP calculation, and its stock fell 26.3% between the 30 October and 5 November closes, by our arithmetic.
As we read the release, Blacklift adds to rented launches rather than replacing them: AST says agreements with outside providers now cover over 100 BlueBird satellites to be deployed between 2027 and 2028, before Blacklift’s planned late-2028 start.
As we read the cash side, the $400 million upfront payment equals 17.5% of the $2,288 million of cash and cash equivalents AST reported at 30 June 2026, by our arithmetic; AST has not yet reported third-quarter cash.
Abel Avellan, AST SpaceMobile founder, chairman and chief executive, release, 6 November 2026
“regular unconstrained access to orbit”
Three Implications
FOR AST’S LAUNCH SCHEDULE AST says Blacklift is designed to carry up to five BlueBird satellites per launch from late 2028.
FOR FIREFLY Firefly says the payments will fund hiring, long-lead materials and new test bays in Briggs, Texas, and that it keeps full ownership of its engine IP.
FOR AST SHAREHOLDERS AST says the upfront consideration includes 10 million to 14 million Class A shares, set by a forward VWAP calculation.
The analysis says: “Reading the map well means knowing where the constraint currently lives and where it is rotating to next.”
As we read it, AST’s release treats launch access as a constraint it wants to control: Avellan says Blacklift would give it regular unconstrained access to orbit. The analysis does not discuss AST or Firefly.
What Is Not Established
Neither release gives Blacklift’s cost per launch, its development budget beyond the Firefly payments, or how many rockets AST plans to build. The share count depends on a forward VWAP calculation, so the value of the share component is our estimate at one day’s close. The reusability and the late-2028 start are AST’s plans. We did not contact either company.
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AST SpaceMobile will pay Firefly about $800 million upfront for a perpetual engine license, plus $500 million for engines and engineering, to build its own reusable Blacklift rocket. At AST’s 5 November close, the 10 million to 14 million shares in the upfront payment would be worth $302 million to $423 million, by our arithmetic.
A note on sourcing. Reported facts and quotations are from AST SpaceMobile’s and Firefly Aerospace’s releases of 6 November 2026. Share prices are Nasdaq official closes; cash is from AST’s 10-Q for the quarter ended 30 June 2026. The share-value range, per-engine average, cash share and price change are our arithmetic. We did not contact either company.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
