After talking to multiple people about their Sunday, no one planned for the amount of fun they would have on that day. I woke up thinking it would just be a simple, easy day at SXSW. I was wrong. Now, don’t let that seem like it was a bad day because it was far from that!

The trade show kicked off on Sunday, and I just had to go check it out. When I first walked in, I became excited by all the amazing things I saw. The first booth I saw was FireFly Aerospace. I was immediately drawn in by the booster they had sitting out front.

FireFly, which is a company based here in Austin, is based on a new term called “NewSpace.” According to their CEO, Thomas Markusic who had his own panel during SXSW, NewSpace is not about creating the latest high-tech devices, but instead “increasing access to and utilization of space, while dramatically lowering the cost of both.”

To try and make this goal come true, FireFly’s main approach is to utilize power rocket technology that has not been updated in nearly 50 years. They also plan to use technology that has been successfully used by other companies.

During the trade show, FireFly brought their second booster that propels their Alpha rocket called Lightning for people to see. Trade show goers could even take a picture in the fairing payload that is located at the top of the rocket and holds cargo, which in this case is a satellite.

Aside from their short-term goals, FireFly also mentioned some of their long-term goals. One of those is the FireFly “gamma.” This would be a reusable rocketplane that would utilize a runaway and operate like an airline. Since it is reusable it would dramatically reduce costs. This would also allow for a major change in human transport as it would take 90 minutes to go anywhere on the planet.

A lot of these advances may still be in the testing phase, but before we know it, the work that FireFly is working on may take the world of aerospace to new levels.