Firefly Aerospace began trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol "FLY." The company's Blue Ghost lunar lander successfully touched down on the moon earlier this year.

Firefly Aerospace Inc.'s stock received a warm welcome on Wall Street on Thursday, as investors piled into the space sector's latest debutant.

The moon-exploration company's stock (FLY) started trading at $70 a share at 12:51 p.m. Eastern time, or 55.6% above its initial-public-offering price. It pared some of those gains to end the session at $60.35, still 34.1% above the IPO price.

With 140.55 million shares outstanding, the closing price values the company at $8.48 billion.

Firefly Aerospace said late Wednesday that it sold 19.3 million shares in the IPO at $45 a share, raising $868.3 million.

Earlier this week, the company raised the expected price range of its IPO to between $41 and $43 a share, after initially setting terms a week before at an expected range of $35 to $39 a share.

In a sign of strong investor demand, even with the higher pricing, the Cedar Park, Texas-based company sold nearly 3.6 million more shares in the IPO than the previously expected 16.2 million shares.

Following a dearth of space IPOs in recent years, the Firefly Aerospace offering marks the third such deal of 2025, after Karman Holdings Inc. $(KRMN)$ in February and Voyager Technologies Inc. $(VOYG)$ in June.

Karman shares, which went public Feb. 13, ended Thursday's session 119% above their IPO price, while Voyager's stock, which made its debut June 11, was 13% above its IPO price. That put Karman's market capitalization at $6.43 billion and Voyager's market cap at $2.09 billion.

Firefly Aerospace's offering also comes hot on the heels of design-software company Figma Inc.'s $(FIG)$ blockbuster IPO. Figma's shares soared 250% above their IPO price last week, marking a milestone for larger offerings and raising more than $1.2 billion.

Firefly Aerospace was thrust into the spotlight earlier this year when its Blue Ghost lunar lander successfully touched down on the moon.

The Blue Ghost Mission 1 carried 10 NASA payloads with a total contract value of $102.1 million that were transported to the lunar surface.

The moon is looming large for U.S. space exploration as NASA's Artemis program plans to return American astronauts to the lunar surface. NASA is also ramping up its efforts to put a nuclear reactor on the moon amid intensifying space competition between the U.S., China, and Russia.

Last week, Firefly Aerospace was awarded a $176.7 million NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services contract to transport five NASA-sponsored payloads to the moon's south pole in 2029. NASA's CLPS initiative aims to deliver science and technology to the moon's surface.

President Donald Trump has made no secret of his administration's space ambitions. During his inauguration speech in January, Trump vowed to champion American space exploration, igniting a rally in space stocks like Intuitive Machines Inc. (LUNR), Rocket Lab USA Inc. (RKLB) and AST SpaceMobile Inc. (ASTS).

Matt Kennedy, senior strategist at IPO fund manager Renaissance Capital, noted that space stocks have been in high demand this year. "Clearly the bankers and their clients are responding to that demand," he said. "Not just IPOs like Voyager, Karman, and now Firefly, but many publicly-traded space companies as well, such as Rocket Lab and AST SpaceMobile."

Aerospace and defense companies like Firefly offer a combination of two segments with their own distinct growth drivers, according to Kennedy. "The defense segment benefits from profitable military contracts amid global conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, while the space business is riding a wave of optimism and technological advancement," he added. "That's a pretty notable departure for much of the past three years, when investors were unwilling to stomach years of losses, and didn't put much credit on future growth plans."

Micah Walter-Range, president of space consulting firm Caelus Partners and a contributor to the S-Network Space Index, the index behind the Procure Space ETF UFO, told MarketWatch that publicly-traded space stocks "have been on a roll" for the past year. "This is an ideal environment for Firefly Aerospace to go public and benefit from positive investor sentiment toward space," he added.

"Firefly is still dealing with some reliability challenges on the launch side as it completes vehicle development, but it does at least have a couple recent launch successes on its record," Walter-Range told MarketWatch. "It also was the first commercial company to achieve a fully successful Moon landing, which helped with winning a $177M contract from NASA in July for a new mission to the Moon's south pole."

Walter-Range also pointed to Firefly Aerospace's partnerships with Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) and Northrop Grumman Corp. $(NOC)$, which made a $50 million investment in the company in May. These, he said, "will help unlock additional government contracting opportunities, especially with the expected influx of spending on the Golden Dome missile shield."

"All these factors combine to make this a great time for Firefly to go public, bring in substantial cash, and immediately invest it in winning and delivering on upcoming government and commercial contracts," said Walter-Range.

Firefly is not currently a holding in the Procure Space ETF.

Announced earlier this year by President Donald Trump, "Golden Dome" is a $175 billion plan to build a U.S. missile defense system.