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 expects the first Photon mission to take place in 2020.
Rocket Lab is constructing a new headquarters and factory in Long Beach, California that will be able to produce 12 or more Electron rockets per year and will add a second mission control center.
Rocket Lab has been launching missions to orbit since January 2018.
On 2020-01-20 Rocket Lab scheduled the Electron vehicle’s first mission of 2020 to be for the National Reconnaissance Office.
Rocket Lab achieved six successful Electron launches in 2019 and seeks to double its 2020 launch rate.
Rocket Lab expects to launch once a month in 2020 and to eventually increase its launch cadence to weekly launches.
The additional pad at LC-1 will provide Rocket Lab the capacity to achieve a launch cadence of one launch per week.
Rocket Lab started work on a second pad at its original launch site on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula on 2019-12-18.
Eight vendors—SpaceX, Xbow Launch Systems, Northrop Grumman, Firefly Aerospace, United Launch Alliance, Aevum, VOX Space, and Rocket Lab—were selected to compete for OSP-4 missions to launch small and medium payloads over 180 kg.
Rocket Lab formally opened Launch Complex 2 on Wallops Island, Virginia on 2019-12-12.
Rocket Lab estimates the Wallops Island site will support a staff of about 30 employees spanning engineering to office administration.
Rocket Lab opened Launch Complex 2 (LC-2) at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia.
Rocket Lab is working to recover and reuse the Electron first stage and controlled the stage after separation down to the ocean surface during the 2019-12-06 launch.
Rocket Lab expects to perform at least one launch per month across its two launch sites in 2020, doubling the company’s 2019 launch rate of six missions.
Rocket Lab launched an Electron mission on 2019-12-06 to test technologies aimed at making the rocket’s first stage reusable.
Rocket Lab used the 2019-12-06 mission to gather data as the first stage passed through the thermal "wall" of heating during reentry rather than attempt stage recovery.
Rocket Lab will formally open a second launch site on Wallops Island, Virginia later in December 2019 with a first launch from that site scheduled for early 2020.
The 2019-12-06 launch was Rocket Lab’s sixth and final Electron mission of 2019.
Under a previous IDIQ contract, TriSept integrated ten cubesats that launched in December 2018 on a Rocket Lab Electron as part of NASA’s 19th Educational Launch of Nanosatellites mission.
A 2019 study titled "Integrating Commercial Space Innovations into National Security Missions" recommended certifying multiple vendors based on agreed-upon base standards for mission assurance, capability, and business capacity, and that study was funded by Blue Origin, Leidos, and Rocket Lab.