By Eric M. Johnson and Joey Roulette
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - Firefly Aerospace Inc, a resurgent rocket company founded by a former SpaceX engineer, plans to build a factory and launch site at Florida's Cape Canaveral Spaceport in a $52 million deal, people familiar with the project said on Wednesday.
The Firefly project is strategically important for the Cedar Park, Texas-based startup as it competes with several other new entrants vying to cash in on a big jump in the number of small satellites expected in the coming years.
Companies like Firefly, billionaire British entrepreneur Richard Branson's Virgin Orbit, and the U.S.-New Zealand company Rocket Lab, are among the most promising companies designing miniaturized launch systems to link a broader swath of the economy to space at lower cost.
Firefly and Space Florida, the state's spaceport authority, declined to comment, citing confidentiality agreements.
Beginning around 2020, around 800 small satellites are expected to launch annually, more than double the annual average over the past decade, according to Teal Group analyst Marco Caceres.
The boom is fueled in part by new venture cash and technology leaps that have reduced the size of satellites used for everything from communications to national security.
A Florida project code-named "Maricopa" was publicly disclosed in November by Space Florida, but officials have been tight-lipped on specifics. Two people familiar with the project said Firefly is the company involved, though one of the people said the deal had not been finalized.
Firefly aims for a first flight in December of its Alpha rocket, which is capable of carrying around 2,200 pounds (1,000 kg) into low-Earth orbit at a cost of about $15 million per flight.
By comparison, it can cost around $62 million for a ride on SpaceX's Falcon 9 with a payload topping 50,000 pounds (22,700 kg).
Firefly, founded around 2014 by former SpaceX and NASA engineer Tom Markusic, says its main competitors are government-subsidized foreign ones like the Indian Space Research Organization.
Asset management firm Noosphere Ventures bought Firefly's assets in 2017 after it nearly shut down when a key European investor backed out. That resulted in the cancellation of a $5.5 million NASA contract for small satellite launches.
Firefly has a launchpad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and has generally talked about expanding operations for Alpha and a higher-capacity Beta rocket around 2021. It was not clear when the Florida expansion would be completed.
In November, NASA named Firefly as one of nine U.S. companies competing for funding under a program to develop technology to explore the moon's surface.