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 acquiring Sinclair Interplanetary to build up its satellite division.
Rocket Lab will use Sinclair systems on its Photon line of smallsat buses and will provide resources for Sinclair to scale up production of those components for sale to other customers.
Rocket Lab’s Photon bus will be used to deliver NASA’s CAPSTONE cubesat to the Moon after launch on an Electron rocket next year under a contract awarded to Rocket Lab by NASA on 2020-02-14.
Rocket Lab announced a manifest for an Electron mission scheduled for no earlier than 2020-03-27 from New Zealand.
Rocket Lab estimated it costs about $100,000,000 to reach a first launch and another $100,000,000 to scale up production.
Rocket Lab is moving its headquarters from Huntington Beach to Long Beach and is setting up a facility that will produce Electron rockets and Rutherford engines and include a mission control center.
Kleos Space planned to launch its Scouting Mission on an Indian PSLV as a rideshare following a change from Rocket Lab’s Electron.
Rocket Lab launched 13 cubesats for NASA’s CubeSat Launch Initiative in December 2018 under a contract originally awarded in 2015 as part of NASA’s Venture Class Launch Services program.
NASA awarded a contract to Rocket Lab on 2020-02-14 for the launch of a cubesat mission that will serve as a precursor for the agency’s planned lunar Gateway.
Rocket Lab will use Photon, the satellite bus it is developing based on the Electron rocket’s kick stage, to place CAPSTONE on a trajectory to the moon.
Rocket Lab plans to launch its first Photon in the second quarter of 2020 as a demonstration satellite for potential customer testing.
Rocket Lab expected its next Electron launch to likely take place in late February or early March 2020.
Rocket Lab planned to resume reusability tests later in 2020 after a block upgrade to the Electron to incorporate parachutes for a slow descent to the ocean.
Rocket Lab planned to average one Electron launch per month in 2020.
Rocket Lab’s first Electron launch of 2020 on 2020-01-30 placed a classified payload into orbit for the National Reconnaissance Office.
Rocket Lab plans to focus on its satellite program in 2020 and offer a high-performance spacecraft bus called Photon that complements its Electron launch vehicle.
Rocket Lab used the NROL-151 launch to further efforts to recover and reuse the Electron first stage.
Rocket Lab is developing a satellite bus called Photon that is based on the Electron rocket’s kick stage.
Rocket Lab successfully launched a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office on 2020-01-30.
Rocket Lab is building a second launch pad in New Zealand that is expected to be ready by late 2020.