Awkward

Firefly is doing a lot better now that he’s out of the picture and they had their phoenix regeneration. Correlation vs causation and all that, but they probably aren’t champing at the bit to get him back in?

Max Polyakov might have some kind of under the table deal with Tom Markusic after selling most of his stake to him for $1, though…

This is the best summary I could come up with:

A long, messy affair between US regulators and a Ukrainian businessman named Max Polyakov seems to have finally been resolved.

Markusic had to briefly halt Firefly’s operations before Polyakov, a colorful and controversial Ukrainian businessman, swooped in and provided a substantial infusion of cash into the company.

“The US government quite happily allowed Polyakov to pump $200 million into Firefly only to decide he was a potential spy just as the company’s first rocket was ready to launch,” Vance told Ars.

In February 2022, as Russia prepared to invade Ukraine, Polyakov agreed to sell his holdings in Firefly at what he described as a huge loss.

In the early days of the war he sought to build a pipeline by which commercial synthetic aperture radar data collected by Western companies could be used by Ukrainian defenders to anticipate Russian advances.

In September 2023 it had a fully successful mission, along with growing lines of business including a lander capable of delivering cargo to the Moon and an in-space tug spacecraft.

The original article contains 716 words, the summary contains 170 words. Saved 76%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!