Rocket Lab is an end-to-end space company and launch service provider, specializing in small satellite launches with its Electron rocket, which has launched 63 times as of April 2025. They are also developing the larger Neutron rocket for constellation deployment. Rocket Lab provides complete space solutions including satellite design and manufacture, spacecraft components, and on-orbit management, serving commercial, civil, and defense markets, with major partners including NASA and the US Space Force. Key products include the Electron and Neutron rockets, Photon satellite bus, and various satellite components.
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Rocket Lab plans to use a new automated tape laying technology to build Neutron composite structures at rates of meters per minute.
Rocket Lab has started discussions with potential Neutron customers including companies planning satellite constellations that Neutron is optimized to deploy.
Frontier-S by Rocket Lab packs Deep Space Network and other common waveforms into a single board package using low power digital signal processing.
Rocket Lab designed the 2021-11-17 Electron improvements to increase reliability, reduce cost, increase performance, and offset recovery system costs.
Frontier-S radios are part of Rocket Lab’s growing space systems portfolio of in-house built products and capabilities.
The Frontier-S by Rocket Lab software defined radio enables affordable communications and radio navigation for planetary missions beyond low Earth orbit and in GPS-denied environments.
The Frontier-S by Rocket Lab is the baseline telemetry and control radio for all Photon missions requiring an S-band radio.
Frontier-S SDRs are currently flying on Rocket Lab’s Pathstone mission and are being integrated into the upcoming CAPSTONE mission to the moon for NASA.
Rocket Lab plans to attempt a midair recovery of an Electron booster sometime in the first half of 2022.
Frontier-S by Rocket Lab is planned for Rocket Lab’s private Photon mission to Venus.
Rocket Lab USA, Inc. has entered into an exclusive license agreement with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory to commercialize small spacecraft telemetry and control radio technology.
The Frontier-S by Rocket Lab SDR is compatible with spacecraft as small as 6U cubesats and offers a lightweight, low power, high radiation tolerant solution for deep space missions.
Rocket Lab aims to combine APL’s innovation with its own high-volume manufacturing to deliver a leading communications solution at competitive costs.
Rocket Lab has no formal block designation for the upgraded Electron version introduced on the 2021-11-17 flight.
The Frontier-S by Rocket Lab is based on the APL Frontier Radio that flew on missions such as the Van Allen Probes, Parker Solar Probe, and the Emirates Mars Mission.
Rocket Lab announced on 2021-11-23 that three previous Electron launches resulted in boosters splashing down in the ocean and being recovered.
Rocket Lab improved the heat shield at the base of the Electron rocket compared with previous launches.
Rocket Lab is offering the Frontier-S SDR commercially as an off-the-shelf solution to other satellite integrators.
Rocket Lab CEO Peter Beck holds the position that companies not developing reusable launch vehicles are producing dead‑end products.
Rocket Lab has launched 21 Electron rockets from New Zealand deploying more than 100 satellites into orbit.