RedWire at Jefferies Conference: Strategic Moves in Space and Defense

On Wednesday, 03 September 2025, RedWire Corp (NYSE:RDW) took center stage at the Jefferies Mining and Industrials Conference 2025. The company highlighted its strategic initiatives, focusing on growing demand in unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and the national security space, while also addressing challenges such as budget-driven order slowdowns. RedWire’s recent acquisition of Edge Autonomy and its focus on differentiated markets like very low Earth orbit (VLEO) positions it for future growth, despite current hurdles.

Key Takeaways

• RedWire is seeing strong demand in UAS and national security sectors but faces slow orders due to budget constraints.
• The company is focusing on VLEO and highly maneuverable GEO markets, leveraging its intellectual property.
• The acquisition of Edge Autonomy enhances RedWire’s capabilities in airborne systems, creating synergies with its space operations.
• RedWire is advancing microgravity manufacturing through SpaceMD, with successful partnerships in the biopharma sector.
• The path to profitability is supported by scale from acquisitions and improved margin profiles.

Operational Updates

During the conference, CEO Peter Cannito discussed RedWire’s strategic focus on markets where it can differentiate itself. The company is primarily a merchant supplier for proliferated LEO constellations, such as providing Link 16 antennas for the Space Development Agency (SDA). RedWire aims to move up the value chain by becoming a provider of full system spacecraft.

In terms of market focus, RedWire is targeting VLEO with platforms like SabreSat and Phantom, which offer higher fidelity earth observation data and stronger signals. Additionally, the company is involved in a highly maneuverable and refuelable GEO program with Space Systems Command called TETRA.

Edge Autonomy Acquisition and Synergies

The acquisition of Edge Autonomy expands RedWire’s capabilities into uncrewed airborne systems (UAS), aligning with the Department of Defense’s drone dominance priority. This acquisition provides operational synergies, as UAS and spaceborne systems share similar technologies, such as structures, avionics, and sensors.

Edge Autonomy is working on significant programs with the Marine Corps and special operations forces and has a prototype award from the Army for the LRR program. The acquisition also strengthens RedWire’s European operations, allowing it to participate more effectively in the European market by avoiding tariffs and aligning with local sourcing preferences.

SpaceMD and Microgravity Manufacturing

RedWire is leading in microgravity research and development on the International Space Station (ISS), focusing on manufacturing high-fidelity crystals for biopharma. Through SpaceMD, RedWire is commercializing the results of compounds flown in space, partnering with companies like Eli Lilly and Bristol Myers Squibb through royalty agreements.

The company has demonstrated the ability to recreate seed crystals terrestrially, proving the commercial viability of its manufacturing process.

Future Outlook

RedWire is optimistic about its role in commercial space stations, awaiting funding for commercial LEO destination procurement. The company plans to provide infrastructure and orbital outfitting capabilities, including rollout solar arrays and advanced biopharma manufacturing.

The path to profitability is bolstered by the scale from the Edge Autonomy acquisition, which reduces SG&A growth relative to revenue. RedWire anticipates improved margin profiles and industry maturation as advanced capabilities move into full-rate production.

For a detailed account of the discussion, please refer to the full transcript below.

Full transcript - Jefferies Mining and Industrials Conference 2025:

Greg Conrad, SVP, Jefferies: Conrad, SVP on the aerospace and defense equity research team at Jefferies, and welcome to our annual Jefferies Industrial Conference. Very excited to have Peter Cannito, chairman and CEO of RedWire joining us today. I think we’re gonna you’re gonna give a a brief presentation and then we’ll do a little bit of fireside chat. Or was that wrong?

Peter Cannito, Chairman and CEO, RedWire: Yeah. No, Greg. I think we’re just eager to hear your questions.

Greg Conrad, SVP, Jefferies: Okay. Perfect. Maybe just to to start, you know, what you’re seeing in terms of demand signals, just given some of the movement we’ve seen with UAS, Golden Dome, and, obviously, we have the the reconciliation bill funding. I mean, what what are the conversations like today with your customers?

Peter Cannito, Chairman and CEO, RedWire: Yeah. No. Well, thanks for having me, first of all, Greg. So it’s great to be here, and, that’s an excellent question. On the demand signal, to be honest, the government, in particular, in the US government, but even in Europe, isn’t being very subtle about, their demand on the drone side in particularly.

I mean, they put out a memorandum that talked about drone dominance. So from that perspective, when you start looking at our UAS capability, the demand signal is very strong there. In terms of national security space, on The US side, there’s also, really, exciting and and and in many cases, pervasive demand signals out in the marketplace via Golden Dome, because space plays an outsized role in that architecture. And so those two areas in particular are very strong. NASA is more mixed.

On the NASA side, you have cuts in the science directorate, which is not an area we traditionally do a lot of work in, but there’s still a lot of enthusiasm around the Artemis program and in the exploration directorate. And but there has been some back and forth in terms of what’s going into the bill, versus what, the president originally wanted and what the senate and house have added back. And as a matter of fact, it has gotten better for, the programs that we’re involved in like Artemis and Gateway as the process has, evolved. So we’re very enthusiastic about that. In Europe, demand for space, continues to be high.

There’s a key milestone coming up. Every three years, the European Union holds a ministerial around space, where they set their budgets. And, the last one, we saw a 17% increase, so we’ll be watching that, very closely. And on the international defense side, there’s been a lot of demand signal on that as more and more European countries talk about increasing their percentage of g m GDP that they spend on, defense. That’s, particularly important with our recent acquisition of Edge Autonomy since via that acquisition we have a 100,000 square foot UAS facility in Latvia that is currently manufacturing drones for the war in Ukraine.

So we’re watching how that evolves as well. So by and large, the signals are all predominantly positive. The one area that is less clear is the timing. And this is just the nature sometimes of the first year of an administration. As the new administration comes in and has new areas they want to focus on, This administration, in particular, has been very aggressive in terms of upsetting the apple cart in terms of what programs are gonna go forward and and whatnot, and that has led to a lot of back and forth in congress.

I think the majority of defense analysts out there believe that we are gonna see a continuing resolution, which can result in, some issues around timing of these things. And, of course, the government fiscal year goes from October 1 to October 1, whereas our calendar year our fiscal year is is the is the calendar year, so that can play across those two time periods. But the demand is there and especially in the space in UAS segments that we we put we operate in.

Greg Conrad, SVP, Jefferies: And I guess somewhat tied to that orders have been a little bit slow, which we’re we’re seeing across the industry. I mean, what is the catalyst for improvement? Is it budget driven? Is it people? And how do you think about the drivers of converting that pipeline?

Peter Cannito, Chairman and CEO, RedWire: Yeah. I think it’s primarily budget driven. Our customers need to get their funding. Some of it on the European side, interestingly enough, it can be tied to, the timing of US budgets. The Europeans, particularly when they look at the Artemis program and gateway, are waiting to see and ensure that the Gateway program in The US gets funded.

So, of course, they’re not going to continue to lean forward on funding Gateway, which RedWire is a large participant through our international birthing and docking system built out of Belgium on the European side of Gateway. They’re obviously gonna hold off to see what the US government will do, but we’re optimistic that as the process, works its way out, whether, we go into continuing resolution, or we have ultimately an appropriations bill that, once the the bills are funded and the programs start, receiving their funding that, the backlog will improve. And then, I mean, Redwire has its roots in being a merchant supplier.

Greg Conrad, SVP, Jefferies: I mean, how do you decide where to prime versus where it makes sense to be a supplier of key technology? And, you know, on the satellite supplier side, I mean, what are you seeing in the market today just given some of the mega constellations or or DOD opportunities?

Peter Cannito, Chairman and CEO, RedWire: Yeah. So the simplest answer to your first question is, we look at the market and we try to we try to determine where we can be differentiated. So we’re primarily a merchant supplier when you look at the proliferated LEO constellations that were primarily associated with, the work of the space development agency. And, for instance, we were a supplier of Link 16 antennas for the tranches associated with that. But when we decided that we were gonna move out on a strategy that we call moving up the value chain to become a provider of the full, system spacecraft of which we now have five, between The US and Europe rather than, pick a market where we didn’t feel like we were differentiated and what looked like it already had a number of players in, like the large LEO constellations, we started looking at where we think the next generation of spacecraft are gonna be.

And, the two areas that we selected that we are primarily focused on are in what’s called very low Earth orbit. We have two platforms in that orbit, one for US national security called Sabersat and the other one, being built out of in Europe for the European SkimSat program called Phantom. We think there’s a lot of advantages that v o v LEO provides, more so than LEO, because it’s closer to the surface of the earth, you can get higher fidelity earth observation data. You can also get stronger signals. There is the challenge of that you’re operating somewhat in atmosphere, so it’s not one for one in terms of developing satellites, but we have two marquee programs that we are being funded for that are focused on that.

So we don’t see that as particularly difficult to overcome. So v entering v LEO because there really was no dominant or actually very few who were focused on, that market was, was one aspect of where we chose to prime, over being a merchant supplier. The other is in what we call highly maneuverable and refuelable GEO. We have a program with, Space Systems Command called TETRA. It’s actually a series of programs.

I think we’re on TETRA seven, that is going to demonstrate the ability to refuel a sat satellite in GEO. This is important for a concept of operations that the Space Force is very interested in called maneuver without regret, meaning in in a potential conflict in space, they’ll have the ability to maneuver their satellites and not use up worry about using up all the fuel on the satellite because they’ll have the ability to to refuel, and we think that’s a really important future capability. So those are advanced concepts where we’ve decided to prime because we felt like we had some sort of intellectual property that allowed us to be a leader in that space.

Greg Conrad, SVP, Jefferies: And then, you know, just thinking about that, like, is that intellectual property? I mean, it seems like whether it’s maneuverable geo or or VLEO, those are a bit of of white space where there’s not as much competition versus your comment on on LEO. Like, what what really enables that?

Peter Cannito, Chairman and CEO, RedWire: Well, in some cases, sometimes what you do is you pick an area and you make investments. In the case of VLEO, we made investments in early modeling of the VLEO environment. Like I said, there there is actually atmosphere in VLEO. Some people started colloquially referring to our SabreSat platform as an orbital drone. So because because it does operate, in that space between, space and, airborne assets.

And so we started modeling that out with, some of our proprietary digital engineering, modeling and simulation capability. Using that, we bid on a program, that DARPA solicited called OTTR, and we were selected as the prime platform for that. And that creates this virtuous cycle of now that we’re working on a funded program, we’re able to, validate the market, build intellectual property through that program, as well as have the confidence to make our own investments. The maneuverable GEO is very similar. We’re on the TETRA program.

That’s a funded program through Space Systems Command where we are developing the technologies. We own the intellectual property associated with those technologies, and and, you get a bit of a funded head start, if you will, working with space systems on that experimentation program where you you learn the, important requirements associated with what’s called rendezvous and proximity operations in space that are required to do refueling, and and and you take that advantage and that not special knowledge that you have in any associated IP that you develop and you continue to invest and it gives you a bit of a head start.

Greg Conrad, SVP, Jefferies: And then maybe just transitioning to the acquisition of Edge Autonomy. I mean, you moved from multi orbit in space to adding airborne. I mean, how interrelated are the systems, and how do you think about potential customers or technology overlap and, you know, revenue synergies going forward?

Peter Cannito, Chairman and CEO, RedWire: Yeah. There’s three primary areas you that you have to think about from a technical operational specific. Of course, we did Edge Autonomy because it has a lot of, financial advantages as well, that complement, legacy Redwire space. But on the technical operational side, if you think about it, a a uncrewed airborne system is not too dissimilar from a, satellite or spacecraft. In in some cases, just to prove a point, I will, in a tongue and cheek manner, refer to our satellites as uncrewed spaceborne systems, to really drive home the point that an uncrewed airborne system and an uncrewed spaceborne system, are essentially platforms.

They have structures. They use avionics. They require a certain level of autonomy in order to operate. They do they have cameras or electro optic infrared sensors on them. In some cases, have radio frequency payloads or RF payloads on them.

So a lot of the technologies associated with both satellites and UAS systems are similar. So for instance, we provide the cameras that went on both the intuitive machine missions to the moon, I m one and I m two, and we also provided the cameras to Blue Ghost. Likewise, Edge Autonomy has a gimbaled electro optic infrared payload, an optic that they, sell in many cases, to our customers in addition to us. So those are very similar technology, areas. On the operational side, drones, do things like intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance.

Satellites perform the same functions. In many cases, drones act as communications relays. Satellites also function in that area. And then lastly, the emerging concepts, coming out of the US national security con ops or or advanced operational concepts, emphasize that it’s a multi domain, fight, and that’s how they wanna fight in the future. They don’t want stovepipes between airborne, space, seaborne, ground.

So being a company that can vertically integrate a combined space and UAS solution, we think is a position on positions us really well, when procurement start coming out looking at a multi domain operational construct.

Greg Conrad, SVP, Jefferies: And I guess just on edge specifically, I mean, we’ve seen some movement with LRR along with the Blue List. I mean, what are the biggest drivers of that business going forward? And how do you think about the domestic versus international pipeline, you know, contributing to future growth?

Peter Cannito, Chairman and CEO, RedWire: Well, so the Drone Dominance, memorandum, is a key aspect of it. And, so, the Department of Defense has made it very clear that drone dominance based on drones that are manufactured inside The United States is a key priority for them. So that positions us really well because we manufacture our drones here inside The United States. And in order to be put on the blue list, the DOD does an evaluation of your supply chain to ensure that you have a secure supply chain and you’re not you don’t have vulnerabilities through foreign parts. So we qualify for that and therefore are really well positioned to take advantage of that key demand coming from the DOD for domestically sourced drones.

On the, army side, we we’ve already are working on major programs out of the marine, Marine Corps and special operations force forces. We recently announced a, they call it a prototype award from the army for the LRR program, which is a key indicator that they’re very interested in our platform for that program. Of course, it’s a bit of a misnomer because the system that we’re providing, the Stalker, is not a prototype. They’re really just, calling it a prototype program because they’re putting it out in the field to see how their operators, use it. But, that is another key demand driver.

We already have multiple branches of the military that have used our system in the field in The US, so they understand how it works, we’re confident that the army is gonna find it to be a value add as well as as part of their evaluation. So that’s really exciting. On the international side, like I mentioned, we’re a proven platform. We have over 200 drones that, have seen operations on the battlefield in The Ukraine, and that’s a key competitive advantage for us because they’re they’re battlefield proven. We understand the lessons learned necessary to operate in that kind of environment.

So as you look at Europe, enhancing their defense spending as a percent of GDP, we have the factory and facility in Latvia and the battlefield experience to satisfy a lot of that demand. So, we see that as, as an important indicator.

Greg Conrad, SVP, Jefferies: And then maybe, staying on Europe, I mean, and and touching on the international piece, I mean, you did a a deal several years ago for SpaceNV, and, you know, you mentioned Edge Autonomy has significant European operations as well. I mean, what are the advantages of being a localized producer, and how does that maybe shape the space and airborne opportunity set in Europe?

Peter Cannito, Chairman and CEO, RedWire: Well, so I wish I could sit here and say that I anticipated tariffs when we did the SpaceNV transaction, but that’s not true. So in that, case, we probably got a little bit lucky. But, the important thing you know, Europe is an important part of the global market for space and uncrewed, airborne systems, and it’s actually a fast, growing area of the market. So we believe that it was important to be there. And, but if you’re gonna participate in the European market, it’s important that you have, European manufacturing capabilities.

They’re they’re like The United States, that wants to buy from domestic sources. And in the cases of tariffs, actually, it’s, been a real benefit because, having a a European a part of the European industrial base selling to critical European customers, there is no trade that is occurring. So we have the ability to sell our space capabilities out of Europe to Europe and our UAS capabilities, out of Europe to Europe. And likewise, in The US, we have the ability to sell domestic manufactured drones to The US. So that that mitigates a lot of the concern about about tariffs.

Greg Conrad, SVP, Jefferies: And then maybe to touch on two other option areas. I mean, recently launched a new venture company SpaceMD. Can you maybe talk a bit about the benefits and timing of launching a a new entity? And then what does that allow or unlock just looking forward to opportunity for generating royalties?

Peter Cannito, Chairman and CEO, RedWire: Yeah. So for over a decade through our legacy companies, we’ve been, doing manufacturing microgravity. We are one of the leaders, if not the leader, in microgravity work, research and development on the ISS. One of the areas we’ve been doing a lot of this work is on the manufacturing of crystals in microgravity, which is a big advantage in terms of manufacturing crystals for biopharma because you get a high fidelity crystal formation because there is no gravity there to upset the formation process like there is terrestrially. And we’ve launched over 28 of our proprietary pillbox systems over the years to develop, refine, and demonstrate that this ability to create crystals for biopharma is very real.

In some of our most recent r and d programs, where we grew crystals in the pillbox. We took, some of the seed crystals back down, terrestrial and demonstrated that we could recreate without losing fidelity those same crystals once we had the template that was built in space. We could do it terrestrially. So now we only need to actually develop the seed crystals on orbit, and, we can bring that down, to the earth and proliferate it, is a key part of the controlling costs because as you can imagine, it’s expensive to manufacture things in space. So we’ve been talking about this for a number of years.

I believe on many of our calls, even yourself, you had asked us the question of when are we gonna commercialize this, and now we finally reached that point where there’s been enough research and experimentation with partners like Eli Lilly and Bristol Myers Squibb and our recently announced partnership with Cecil Libero where it’s no longer just R and D. We’ve proven the commercial viability of the manufacturing process, and therefore, we launched SpaceMD, to be that company that takes the results of, compounds that we’re gonna fly ourselves, and those seed crystals, which is very valuable intellectual property, and commercialize that with biopharma partners through royalty agreements. So we’re really excited about where this is headed. Obviously, if we can make better drugs, it’ll be quite a revolutionary business.

Greg Conrad, SVP, Jefferies: And then I feel like another area we hear a lot about is private space stations and potential acceleration of missions to moon and Mars. I mean, what what are the biggest opportunities for RedWire around those missions, and how does that build upon some of the work or technology that you’re building on today?

Peter Cannito, Chairman and CEO, RedWire: Yeah. So we’re very excited about commercial space stations. There was a recently, I believe, a directive that came out of NASA that, slightly changed the commercial LEO destination procurement. That was an indicator that real funding, should start flowing, very soon. Our positioning on, the commercial LEO destinations or private space stations is twofold as both a provider of world class infrastructure like our rollout solar arrays.

Since our rollout solar arrays are already, functioning, and deployed on the current International Space Station, that’s a great level of past performance that gives, CLD providers the confidence that that is a technology that would work for their space station as well. And we have other infrastructure, based capabilities like our international birthing and docking system that is relevant to them. And so that’s on the we’re a a key supplier for the building of space stations. But we’re also, in many cases, considered an orbital outfitter. Our experiment or our experience, putting experiments on the International Space Station, for for decades have demonstrated that, we can partner with these CLD providers to put relevant capability in their space stations.

Ultimately, a space station isn’t gonna have a lot of value if it doesn’t, have something that it’s producing inside, other than perhaps billionaires going up and doing somersaults. But, capabilities like the pillbox and our advanced, biopharma manufacturing and other capabilities, are are are things that we envision being contracted to go onto these commercial space stations. So we’re really excited about where that’s headed.

Greg Conrad, SVP, Jefferies: And then maybe just finally on profitability, what’s the path to drive improvement and get back to the pro form a model? How much is tied to volume mix? You know program progression, just thinking about development versus production and then you know with the acquisition complete of Edge Autonomy. You know how does that contribute to that model going forward?

Peter Cannito, Chairman and CEO, RedWire: Yeah. No. Excellent question. So one of the big drivers for our path to profitability that we’ve talked about in the past is scale. So the acquisition of Edge Autonomy gives us additional scale, which we don’t need to grow SG and A, for instance, at the same slope of the curve or the same rate of growth as you do with the additional revenue that an acquisition of that size brings to the table.

So that’s important. We’ve also talked a lot about improving our margin profiles, and Edge Autonomy has a very attractive margin profile that’s in a blended way certainly improves our overall profitability. I think one of the areas that we think is very complementary between legacy RedWire space and edge autonomy is the maturity of the two industries and the differences in that effect. Space is still a very early stage development focused industry where there’s a lot of space companies that are primarily focused on top line growth, on getting market share. And that’s why a lot of them are not profitable is because whether they’re building rockets or have other capabilities, they’re trying to garner as much market share as possible, and that’s important to us as well.

But we’re looking at having a balanced breakfast. UASs or drones are a much more mature market. There’s less advanced development required. The baselines are fairly stable and fairly advanced. So instead of being development focused, they’re more of a point of sale commercial off the shelf product.

And we think by combining those, it not only gives us more resiliency to participate in the great potential on the space side of the house, but it also allows us to continue to invest as the margins in space grow as that industry starts to mature and many of the advanced capabilities that we have right now move from being primarily development programs into full rate production.

Greg Conrad, SVP, Jefferies: Well, and with that, that’s the end of the questions. But if there’s any questions from the audience,

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