Firefly Aerospace Scores Major NASA Contract To Launch Climate Research Mission

Taking to their official blog on 4 March 2025, Firefly Aerospace proudly announced their new NASA launch contract. This Venture-Class Acquisition of a Dedicated Rideshare (VADR) contract is for an Investigation of the Convective Updraft (INCUS) mission by NASA.

Firefly Aerospace’s New NASA Launch Contract Will Benefit Climate Research

According to the Firefly official blog, this launch will take place on the NASA Wallops flight facility in Virginia. The entire mission is for INCUS, which is a part of NASA’s Earth System Science Pathfinder program.

The mission’s mandate is to study why, when, and where tropical storms form to help advance climate change models, as Firefly Aerospace points out. For the launch, which Firefly will be in charge of, NASA plans to send three satellites into space to help observe tropical storms.

Notably, all three INCUS satellites will work together using their high-frequency precipitation radar to study the behaviour of both tropical storms and thunderstorms. One out of the three satellites will have a microwave radiometer for providing spatial content of the weather that the radars observe.

While the exact launch date is unknown, it will be the third time NASA will be using the Firefly Aerospace Alpha rocket. We expect this launch to take place after the NASA QuickSounder launch scheduled for 2026, which will be the second Alpha rocket launch.

Firefly Aerospace Is Confident In Its Ability To Execute The INCUS Mission Contract

Speaking on this new contract and future launch for the NASA INCUS mission, Jason Kim, CEO of Firefly Aerospace, expressed confidence in his firm’s ability to perfectly execute the contract. In his words, the Alpha rocket is “strategically built” to support missions like the NASA INCUS mission.

He adds that the design of this rocket allows Firefly “customers to place their satellites in the exact orbit they need and use their mission-critical resources to immediately begin conducting research and making advancements in science.” Considering the success of the first Alpha launch for NASA last summer, Firefly Aerospace was able to win more contracts with the space agency.
Meanwhile, NASA says that this mission will launch in 2027, so we can only await more details on the mission ahead of its launch. Next year we expect to see the launch of the NASA QuickSounder mission aboard an Alpha rocket.