Rocket Lab Corp (RKLB)

Rocket Lab is an end-to-end space company whose mission is to open access to space to improve life on Earth. It provides launch services, spacecraft design services, spacecraft components, spacecraft manufacturing, optical systems, and on-orbit management solutions intended to make reaching space faster, easier and more affordable. Its Electron launch vehicle, a fully carbon composite rocket powered by 3D printed, electric turbopump Rutherford engines, first launched in 2017. Through December 31, 2025, Electron had completed 75 successful missions and delivered over 200 spacecraft to orbit, and in 2025 it was the second most frequently launched orbital rocket.

The business has two main parts. Launch Services covers Electron, which carries spacecraft up to 300 kg to low Earth orbit on dedicated and rideshare missions, and HASTE, a suborbital testbed derived from Electron for hypersonic testing. Electron has a kick stage that can also operate as a spacecraft, marketed as Photon. The company is also developing Neutron, a reusable-ready, two-stage medium-lift vehicle with a planned capacity of about 13,000 kg to low Earth orbit, aimed at large constellations, interplanetary missions and potentially human spaceflight. Space Systems covers spacecraft components, spacecraft design and manufacturing, flight and ground software, optical systems, and on-orbit constellation management. Components include composite structures, reaction wheels, star trackers, radios, separation systems, solar cells and arrays, high-voltage batteries and command and control software. The optical systems unit builds electro-optical and infrared sensor payloads for space domain awareness, missile warning and tracking. The Space Systems business was built partly through acquisitions: Sinclair Interplanetary, Advanced Solutions, Planetary Systems Corporation, SolAero Technologies and GEOST. It has flight hardware on over 1,800 missions.

Customers include government agencies such as the U.S. Department of War, NASA, DARPA and the NRO, as well as commercial and international spacecraft operators such as Blacksky, Canon, Kinéis, Capella Space, Planet, OHB Group and Synspective. More than 20 organizations have used its launch services. Its spacecraft serve commercial, defense and civil government customers, and have supported NASA's CAPSTONE lunar mission and the ESCAPADE mission. The end markets include communications, remote sensing, Earth observation, meteorology, navigation, defense, scientific exploration and interplanetary missions. A unified global business development team, based mainly in the United States, sells both launch and space systems, relying largely on conferences, industry events and direct outreach.

Rocket Lab is deeply vertically integrated, with design, manufacturing and test capabilities in the United States, New Zealand and Canada. It manufactures Rutherford engines at its Long Beach, California headquarters and assembles its composite tanks and structures in-house. It owns or leases its own propulsion test infrastructure. It operates Launch Complex 1, a private site in Mahia, New Zealand, with two pads supporting up to 120 missions a year, and Launch Complex 2 at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, licensed for 8 missions a year. Launch Complex 3, under construction at Wallops, is being built for Neutron and is expected to enter service in 2026. LC-1 operates under a U.S.–New Zealand treaty that permits the use of U.S. launch technology there. The company also runs its own ground station network and works with partner ground network providers.