Firefly Aerospace Might Launch a Rocket in 2020
Firefly Aerospace was created by Tom Markusic. This company has achieved a lot so far thanks to its founder and Max Polyakov. Now they are hoping to travel to the moon.
Joining the space field
Tom had worked for NASA and SpaceX. At SpaceX, he was managing the site of the company based in Texas. He worked there for around five years before short stints at Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin. He returned to Texas in 2014 and by then he had some knowledge regarding space activities. He even knew that the main challenge faced by astronauts was the capital required to travel to space.
The collapse of Firefly Company
Firefly Company which was owned by Tom Markusic was about to collapse in the year 2016 due to insufficient funds. Tom did everything he could to find an investor to save his company. He used all the money he had to the point that both the company and its employees crushed. This, however, did not surprise the industry since there were so many other rocket companies experiencing money issues.
Max Polyakov rescued Firefly Company
An entrepreneur by the name Max Polyakov was the one who rescued Firefly Company. He restored it and even assisted it through the initial two launches. Together with Tom Markusic, Max was able to find out the sum of money required to achieve their goal of launching rockets. The amount needed was between 75 and 100 million dollars. And since Max was on board with a pocketbook, Tom did not have to dwell on looking for the money. This gave him a chance to focus more on the technical problems encountered in the launching.
Apart from providing the money that Firefly needed to continue operating, Max Polyakov additionally contributed to the growth of the company with his business deals knowledge.
He analyzed the market and the competition in rocket companies. After his analysis, he felt that the first load capacity of Alpha which was about four hundred kilograms was small for the needs of small satellites.
The financial support from Max along with the knowledge that Tom possessed was able to restore Firefly Company. Now the company is hoping to launch the 1st rocket this year.
During the first years of Firefly, Tom learnt that if an investor has no interest in space activities, then he/she will not be willing to support a space company. There are a number of risks involved and benefiting from a space company takes time.
Max Polyakov has a lot of experience in space activities and actually he came from a family of individuals that worked for a space project. His father used to be a software engineer for a space company. When the project they worked on collapsed in 1991, Max Polyakov saw how his parents ended up becoming poor.
Tom and Max are currently coming up with a response to the space field which expected them to give up on space activities.
