Reviewing YSS (NYSE:YSS) & Firefly Aerospace (NASDAQ:FLY)

Firefly Aerospace (NASDAQ:FLY) and YSS (NYSE:YSS) are both mid-cap manufacturing companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, risk, institutional ownership, dividends, profitability, valuation and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and recommmendations for Firefly Aerospace and YSS, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Firefly Aerospace	1	4	4	1	2.50
YSS	0	2	8	0	2.80

Firefly Aerospace currently has a consensus price target of $39.71, indicating a potential upside of 98.77%. YSS has a consensus price target of $39.00, indicating a potential upside of 43.59%. Given Firefly Aerospace’s higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Firefly Aerospace is more favorable than YSS.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Firefly Aerospace and YSS”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Firefly Aerospace	$60.79 million	52.34	-$231.13 million	($7.28)	-2.74
YSS	$357.46 million	9.65	N/A	N/A	N/A

YSS has higher revenue and earnings than Firefly Aerospace.

Profitability

This table compares Firefly Aerospace and YSS’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Firefly Aerospace	-306.97%	N/A	-38.90%
YSS	N/A	N/A	N/A

Summary

YSS beats Firefly Aerospace on 5 of the 8 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Firefly Aerospace

Firefly Aerospace is a market leading space and defense technology company with an established track record of success providing comprehensive mission solutions to national security, government, and commercial customers. Our mission is to enable responsive, regular, and reliable launch, transit, and operations in space for our customers across the globe. Backed by our world-class team and proven technology, we have designed, developed, and deployed our class-leading launch vehicles and dynamic spacecraft solutions to support critical customer missions across the space domain. As a leader of responsive mission solutions and the only commercial company to achieve a fully successful Moon landing, we are a partner of choice for national security, government, and commercial customers for their critical space missions. As a U.S.-based company, our purpose-built family of products aligns with the ongoing paradigm shift in government missions and procurement processes, where speed, dependability, efficiency, and economics drive customer decision-making. We have a differentiated and scalable platform of Launch and Spacecraft Solutions with flight heritage. Within Launch, we have two offerings built on common technologies: Alpha and Eclipse. Our operational launch vehicle, Alpha, is the first and only U.S.-based orbital rocket in the 1,000 kilograms class to successfully reach orbit, with four launches completed successfully. These successful launches include responsive space missions, which are a significant differentiator for Firefly and a critical national defense solution. Eclipse, a reusable and scaled up version of Alpha, is in final development in partnership with Northrop Grumman and is expected to deliver 16,000-kilogram payloads to Low Earth Orbit (“LEO”) and can access Medium Earth Orbit (“MEO”), Geostationary Orbit (“GEO”), Highly Elliptical Orbit (“HEO”) and Trans-lunar Injection (“TLI”). We expect that Eclipse will first launch from Wallops Island, Virginia, as early as 2026 and it will be able to support space station resupply, commercial spacecraft, critical national security missions, and scientific payloads for the domestic and international markets. — Our Spacecraft Solutions—our Blue Ghost lander (“Blue Ghost”) and Elytra offerings—highlight the heritage of common technologies from our launch vehicles. Blue Ghost Lander and Elytra are highly maneuverable spacecraft enabled by high performance rocket engine technology. Our Blue Ghost lander is the only commercial vehicle to ever achieve a fully successful Moon landing and the first U.S.- based lander to successfully complete a lunar surface mission since NASA’s Apollo 17 in 1972. We have a flight proven spacecraft that has operated in LEO, MEO, GEO, and Cislunar orbits. Elytra is our high thrust spacecraft platform creating new categories for space domain awareness and warfighting, long-range communications relays, on-orbit edge processing, and advanced space exploration. Elytra is capable of a wide-range of spacecraft missions across multiple orbits, including satellite delivery, on-orbit transfers, hosted payloads, communications relay, and more–which positions us to help establish a dominant U.S. and allied national security position in space. Elytra will support near-term Blue Ghost missions, highlighting both space-readiness and scalability of the underlying technology. Elytra will also support a responsive on-orbit mission for the U.S. Department of Defense’s (the “DoD”) Defense Innovation Unit (“DIU”) and perform multiple Rendezvous Proximity Operations (“RPO”) and space domain awareness operations on-demand. Additionally, we expect to offer a lunar imaging service, named Ocula, through Elytra as early as 2026. These foundational capabilities and underlying technologies form the basis of our responsive, dedicated, and scalable solutions that are evolving alongside the rapidly shifting defense technology and space landscape. — We operate in a highly attractive and growing industry. According to McKinsey’s report from 2024, the global space economy is projected to reach $1.8 trillion in value by 2035 driven by accelerating national security and commercial demand. In recent years, record demand for satellites caused a supply shortage of orbital launch vehicles. In 2024, nearly 2,800 satellites launched to orbit, representing more than a 500% increase in demand for launch services compared to just five years prior, according to a 2025 report by BryceTech. The scarcity of launch capacity and increasing government and commercial demand has led these customers to seek out defense technology companies with cost-efficient and proven production systems for increasing capacity. In the 21st century, space evolved from frontier exploration into a critical domain for global infrastructure and contested dominance. From 2024 – 2029, the DoD’s average proposed space budget has increased 82% from 2018 – 2023 averages. Governments from militarily competitive and adversarial countries continue to make significant investments in space and develop their capabilities, which we believe makes our unique mission solutions a crucial resource for the United States’ national defense strategy. Space is the critical backbone of national security communications, intelligence gathering, and support for terrestrial military operations. As one of the only U.S.-based commercial companies currently equipped to provide reliable access to launch, transit, and operations in space, we are leading the way in end-to-end services for the rapidly expanding defense, space exploration, and commercial space markets. Our products are designed to address our customers’ space and defense technology needs. Within Launch, we provide satellite customers with reliable, regular, and rapid access to space. Including its inaugural launch in 2021, Alpha has conducted six launches and has more than 30 planned launches under contract as of March 2025. The successful FLTA002 mission using Alpha made us the first U.S. company to achieve orbit on its second attempt. Our leading launch offerings are tailored to support the demands of our customers in the national security space. The VICTUS NOX mission using Alpha set a new responsive launch record for the U.S. Space Force (“Space Force”), with a turnaround time from notification to launch in approximately 24 hours, shattering the previous industry record of 21 days. The mission established a responsive launch defense capability that previously did not exist, which provides critical warfighting advantages to the United States. As a result of the success of VICTUS NOX, we have won additional responsive launch contracts for Alpha, including the VICTUS SOL and VICTUS HAZE missions. Alpha is an attractive platform for providing hypersonic flight test capabilities to the DoD and other federal agencies. Alpha is contracted to be utilized for MACH-TB, the DoD’s Multi-Service Advanced Capability Hypersonics Test Bed, to carry and deploy payloads into hypersonic trajectories, a crucial testing step for national security customers in the development of next generation weapon systems. Our Alpha platform allows us to provide cost effective hypersonic test capabilities, making us a partner of choice for defense companies looking to advance in the arena of hypersonics. The Eclipse rocket is a next-generation vehicle designed to fill a gap in the current launch market. Building on the scalable technological foundation of our Alpha launch vehicle, we are developing Eclipse in partnership with Northrop Grumman to be reusable and deliver upwards of 16 times the mass to orbit compared to Alpha. Eclipse leverages key technologies and expertise from Alpha, including a carbon composite structure and patented tap-off cycle engine technology. Additionally, Alpha laid the foundation for our production systems and test stands that are being used for rapid production of Eclipse. These design features and foundation enable enhanced performance, flexible launch schedules, and competitive pricing. To complement our Launch platform, we offer customizable Spacecraft that are versatile and launch vehicle agnostic: our proven Blue Ghost Lander and our multi mission orbital spacecraft line, Elytra, which is being built using the Blue Ghost technological framework. This pair of spacecraft product lines leverages common technologies including flight software, thrusters, batteries, avionics, and composite structures. Our spacecraft are flexible and can be launched individually or together to enable lander and on-orbit missions. — On March 2, 2025, we became the first private company to successfully land and operate on the Moon with Blue Ghost Mission 1. The achievement marked the first fully successful U.S. lunar surface landing since the Apollo era over 50 years ago. Historically, only five countries—the United States, China, Russia, Japan, and India—have achieved the feat of a lunar soft-landing, putting Firefly’s capability in the realm of global superpowers. Blue Ghost Mission 1 carried 10 NASA payloads to the Moon for a total contract value of $102.1 million and completed all NASA missions for 14 days on the surface and five hours into the lunar night, while successfully meeting mission expectations. The success of our Blue Ghost lander delivered valuable data and positions us to push forward rapidly with additional lunar missions, as well as future interplanetary expeditions. During Blue Ghost Mission 1, we also proved our common Elytra spacecraft technology by operating through LEO, MEO, GEO, and Cislunar space prior to landing. Elytra will directly support Blue Ghost Mission 2 in 2026, providing data relay services from lunar orbit. Elytra is also contracted to conduct an on-orbit mission that supports the National Reconnaissance Office (“NRO”), and is onboarded to perform technology missions to support the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture of Tracking and Transport layer constellations for the Space Development Agency (“SDA”). Elytra has also been placed on contract for a Space Maneuver Vehicle to support the DoD’s DIU with high delta-v to perform hundreds of RPO maneuvers to perform Space Domain Awareness to deter rival space threats. Firefly’s state-of-the-art facilities support our Launch and Spacecraft product lines. Our research and development, iterative testing, and scalable manufacturing processes are vertically integrated and streamlined. Our corporate headquarters, the Rocket Ranch, and the Hive are located just north of Austin, Texas. The Rocket Ranch, our 200-acre,state-of-the-art manufacturing and testing facility, is strategically located within 25 miles of our Austin facilities. The Rocket Ranch has approximately 200,000 square feet of production capacity, six test stands, and advanced manufacturing equipment which leverages automation through robotics. The Hive houses our spacecraft, software, and avionics teams, in addition to a state-of-the-art clean room and a mission control room that supports launch, land, and orbit missions. We perform assembly and testing in-house and are co-locatedwith design and manufacturing, enabling fast and high-quality development cycles and efficient use of working capital. Our full suite of manufacturing capabilities is supplemented by four launch sites, which will continue to enhance flexibility and responsiveness for our missions. We can arrange ongoing launch rockets from the Vandenberg Space Force Base launch site in California. Additional launch sites are under construction at Virginia’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island and the Esrange Space Center in Sweden, and future launch pad capacity will be unlocked from expansion at Cape Canaveral SFS in Florida. Our significant scale and unique blueprint are strategically planned to support our increasing launch cadence as we grow. Our principal executive offices are located in Cedar Park, TX.

About YSS

York Space Systems is a leading, U.S.-based, space and defense prime(1) providing a comprehensive suite of mission-critical solutions for national security, government and commercial customers. York is one of the only space and defense primes with proprietary hardware and software capabilities designed to address customers’ complex mission requirements across the critical elements of the entire space ecosystem throughout the mission lifecycle. York is the number one provider to the U.S. Department of Defense’s (“DoD”) Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (“PWSA”) by number of spacecraft operating in-orbit, by number of contracts, and by variety of contract types as of September 2025. York is a partner of choice for our customers, with differentiated performance versus traditional primes based on price, speed to deployment, and sophistication of capabilities. We produce our satellites at approximately half the cost of our competitors and have been the first to deliver and launch satellites for the PWSA. York is the first and only company to demonstrate Link-16(2) connectivity from space, highlighting our unique and innovative capabilities. York is purpose built to address evolving national security space challenges and to adapt to the ongoing shift in the U.S. government’s mission needs and procurement process. We believe we are positioned to capture an outsized share of growth in our core markets. York provides customers a vertically integrated, full technology stack of solutions including design, production, integration, and operation of spacecraft with turnkey offerings to manage spacecraft and constellations throughout their entire mission lifecycle. York has significant space heritage, having flown 74 missions, created 17 products with flight heritage, and logged over four million on-orbit hours. York’s position as a prime enables us to monetize the entire space vertical from launch to mission operations, from spacecraft to payloads, and from edge computing to data transfer. York was founded in 2012 by our CEO, Dirk Wallinger, to create an innovative space technology mission prime, with a goal of meeting the evolving national security threats from space by providing mission-critical spacecraft at scale, faster, and at lower cost. We believe that York’s proven production and delivery capabilities place it among a very limited number of companies who have the capability to deliver the required solutions for the Golden Dome based on its current timeline. We provide our customers with the ability to quickly and effectively field responsive space-based technologies. Our proprietary hardware, software and mission operations solutions are designed to address the United States’ national security priorities: missile defense (crucial to the Golden Dome), counter-space capabilities, and space domain awareness. Increasing geopolitical tensions are driving near-peer adversaries to invest heavily in military space capabilities to gain advantage in orbit—the next domain in global conflict. In today’s threat environment, rapidly deployable satellites are critical to providing denied benefit in space, maintaining space superiority and countering these emerging threats. This paradigm shift in global warfighting is driving significant growth in defense spending, with the global satellite market projected to grow by approximately $320 billion to over $600 billion from 2023 to 2032 at approximately an 8% Compound Annual Growth Rate (“CAGR”), up from approximately $280 billion in 2022 according to Allied Market Research. This growth is supported by the Golden Dome, the space intelligence community and the DoD’s PWSA program. We have invested in our infrastructure and expanded our production capabilities with a goal of meeting this evolving threat while growing our backlog to approximately $642 million and 107 spacecraft as of September 30, 2025. We believe we distinguish ourselves from other space mission primes by offering a fully integrated portfolio of proprietary spacecraft, software and services. Our versatile spacecraft are built on a modular platform, allowing us to move quickly from design and development to deployment to meet our customers’ needs for their rapid response missions. In addition, we provide software throughout the space layer, bolstered by our 2023 acquisition of Emergent Space Technologies (“Emergent”), including flight control and edge computing, and we recently added more than 45 ground antennas in connection with our acquisition of ATLAS Space Operations (the “ATLAS Acquisition”). Our capabilities include a differentiated suite of spacecraft solutions with proven, common technologies. We offer the S-CLASS, LX-CLASS, and M-CLASSspacecraft, which are high-quality, low-cost satellite platforms that are proven and scalable to a wide array of space market needs. Our spacecraft are supported by proprietary satellite software enabling versatile integration of a variety of payloads for customers and supply chain commonalities across platforms. The various spacecraft classes are designed and engineered to address a broad cross section of the spacecraft market while maximizing payload accommodation. The LX-CLASS is double the mass of the S-CLASS and leverages the S-CLASS design, sharing more than 90% of its technology with the S-CLASS, to offer a specialized platform with enhanced capabilities. Similarly, the M-CLASS utilizes the previous satellite platform designs, sharing approximately 75% of its hardware and 95% of its software with the S-CLASS and LX-CLASS, while greatly enhancing scale and power for spacecraft mass up to 2,000 kg and 8kW+ peak power consumption. Our proven suite of platforms provide solutions from 100 to 2,000 kgs and enables us to serve a large total addressable market. York’s spacecraft architecture framework results in significant commonality across platforms and software, allowing for scalable solutions at lower cost. York’s three different platforms share approximately 75% of the same hardware and 95% of the software leading to significant cost reductions throughout the value chain while maximizing product quality. This approach also reduces Non-Recurring Engineering (“NRE”) cost associated with platform development while reducing failure risks inherent to a unique design. Key in-house hardware components include Command and Data Handling (“C&DH”), flight computers, Attitude Control Systems (“ACS”), Electrical Power Systems (“EPS”) and production testing. These components complement our spacecraft production while our software-enabled services underpin autonomous, resilient operations and support key defense technologies. While the standardized spacecraft architecture framework provides scalable building blocks for rapid constellation deployment, York’s proprietary software supports key elements of operational success from mission planning to ongoing mission operations. Autonomous constellation planning and hands-off operations are essential for managing the increasing quantity of spacecraft deployed in orbit. Technologies include the Multi-Mission Operations Center (“M-MOC”), a secure, autonomous, command structure that manages multiple York spacecraft, and Bastion, York’s mission-ready ground software solution, which allows operators to manage entire fleets from a single ground architecture across more than 45 antennas throughout the world. York hardware and software solutions are vertically integrated across the technology stack. Our model allows us to capture recurring revenue driven by ongoing satellite-based software and services as well as hardware replacement cycles. Once spacecraft are fielded, York provides continuous operational support, downlink antenna usage, and proprietary software solutions, including on-spacecraft upgrades during the full orbital lifespan. Contracts have historically provided a fixed cost for software maintenance with upgrade options available for purchase. The expected replacement cycle for the current portfolio of space vehicles is approximately five to six years. York’s full lifecycle solution and ongoing operational support distinguishes York from its competitors, positioning us to act as prime for the replacement and potential expansion of competitors’ aging constellations. As a result, we expect our recurring revenue to increase as the installed base of spacecraft in orbit grows, creating a highly visible revenue model, accelerating growth and increasing margins. Our cutting-edge facilities and manufacturing footprint are purpose-built to support the rapid development and production of our spacecraft. Following the opening of our 60,000 square foot Potomac facility in August 2023, we have quadrupled production capability and believe we will be able to meet demand to manufacture and test over 1,000 satellites annually, supporting our position as a leader in rapid, high volume spacecraft delivery. with the ability to reliably deliver spacecraft faster and more affordably than traditional primes. — (1) A primary contractor (“prime”) that leads major defense programs and deals directly with the Department of Defense. (2) A real-time, military tactical data link network used by the U.S. government and NATO. — Midco II was formed on September 4, 2025 to hold the business assets of York Space Systems. Our principal executive offices are located in Greenwood Village, CO.