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 is headquartered in the United States and operates launch sites in New Zealand and Virginia.
Rocket Lab is opening a new headquarters facility in Long Beach, California.
Rocket Lab is poised to weather the crisis due to its mixed portfolio of commercial and government business, including Department of Defense contracts.
Rocket Lab is currently the only small launch company that has deployed satellites to orbit.
Synspective selected Rocket Lab to launch its first satellite on 2020-04-14.
Rocket Lab signed a contract with Synspective to launch the StriX-α synthetic aperture radar satellite on an Electron rocket from New Zealand in late 2020.
New Zealand’s Level 4 lockdown led Rocket Lab to delay its next Electron launch that had been scheduled for 2020-03-30.
Rocket Lab raised $140,000,000 in late 2018 as reserve funding to support the company.
Rocket Lab announced plans in August 2019 to recover and reuse the Electron first stage using a midair parachute capture method.
Rocket Lab won the CAPSTONE contract on 2020-02-14 to launch a NASA lunar cubesat mission using an Electron rocket and Rocket Lab’s Photon satellite bus.
NASA awarded Rocket Lab a contract in February 2020 for the 2021 launch of a cubesat mission.
Capella Space is a commercial customer of Rocket Lab and is building a constellation of synthetic aperture radar satellites.
NASA selected a Rocket Lab Photon bus for a mission to lunar orbit scheduled for 2021.
Rocket Lab’s first National Reconnaissance Office launch took place in January from the New Zealand launch site.
Rocket Lab was at the pad and ready to launch a second NRO satellite from the New Zealand site days before the site was ordered closed.
Rocket Lab has completed Electron vehicles that can be ready for launch once New Zealand launches resume.
Rocket Lab announced on 2020-03-24 that it was delaying the next launch of its Electron rocket from New Zealand.
Rocket Lab was planning to launch an Electron rocket from New Zealand later in March with the launch scheduled no earlier than 2020-03-30.
The Rocket Lab mission “Don’t Stop Me Now” will place into orbit ANDESITE, a cubesat built by Boston University and whose launch is being provided by NASA.
Rocket Lab plans to launch the first Photon demonstration mission in the second quarter of 2020.