Northrop Grumman to invest $50 million into Antares 330 to be launched from Wallops

By Linda Cicoira

Northrop Grumman is investing $50 million into Firefly Aerospace to speed their joint production of the Antares 330 rocket and the newly named Eclipse medium launch vehicle that will be launched from Wallops Island, “as early as 2026.

The two companies see the rocket as a contender for Space Force’s National Security Space Launch Program or NSSL, which was initiated in 2023. The Space Force is contracting providers of small-to-medium launch services for its less risky and/or complex missions.

“With a 16 metric ton to orbit capability, Eclipse is a sweet spot for programs like NSSL Lane 1 and a natural fit to launch proliferated constellations,” Jason Kim, Firefly’s CEO, said Thursday.

Eclipse will be “able to support space station resupply, commercial spacecraft, critical national security missions, and scientific payloads for the domestic and international markets,” Kim continued. “It is being designed to carry 16,300 kilograms of cargo to low Earth orbit or 3,200 kilograms to geosynchronous transfer orbit.”

Wendy Williams, Northrop Grumman vice president and general manager for launch and missile defense systems, said that the “partnership with Firefly builds on our capacity to provide crucial space-based communication, observation, and exploration for civil and national security customers.”

The two companies first partnered in 2022 to build Antares 330 as a domestically produced successor to Northrop Grumman’s legacy Antares rocket, originally designed for NASA launches, which relied on a Ukrainian first stage and Russian engines.

     “Eclipse will utilize the same first stage Firefly is developing for Antares 330, powered by seven of the company’s Miranda engines. It also “retains scaled-up versions of Alpha’s propulsion systems and carbon composite structures, allowing the team to rapidly build and test Eclipse with significant production efficiencies and economies of scale,” the company stated.