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’s Electron vehicle achieved its first orbital launch in January 2018.
Rocket Lab operates three launch pads at two launch sites, including two pads at a private orbital launch site in New Zealand and a third pad in Virginia.
Rocket Lab's Electron has been utilized for missions despite falling short of its forecasted launch count for the year.
Rocket Lab designed, built, integrated, and tested the ESCAPADE spacecraft for the University of California Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory and NASA.
Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) packed and shipped two Mars-bound spacecraft to Cape Canaveral, Florida for launch as of 2024-08-16.
Neutron will launch and land at a dedicated launch and test range within Rocket Lab Launch Complex 3 at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia starting in 2025.
Neutron will be powered by Rocket Lab’s 3D-printed reusable Archimedes engine, an oxygen-rich staged combustion engine using liquid oxygen and methane propellants.
Neutron is the world’s first medium-lift carbon composite rocket and builds on Rocket Lab’s carbon composite techniques used across more than 50 Electron launches.
Production of Archimedes engines takes place at Rocket Lab’s Engine Development Complex at its headquarters in Long Beach, California.
The launch is scheduled during a 14-day window that opens on 2024-08-11 from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula.
Rocket Lab is providing Capella Space with a custom extended fairing for the Acadia-3 satellite on Electron.
Rocket Lab acquired Planetary Systems Corporation in 2021.
Since partnering in 2019, KSATlite has been the primary ground station network supporting Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle and LEO satellites.
Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) partnered with Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) to develop a global ground station service for Rocket Lab operations and customers.
The expanded KSAT and Rocket Lab satellite communications service provides extended monitoring, control, and data acquisition capabilities in S-band, X-band, and Ka-band supporting key IRIG-106 modulation codes.
Rocket Lab is developing the medium-lift reusable Neutron rocket to launch constellations of satellites, national security and defense missions, and interplanetary missions from mid-2025.
Rocket Lab is developing the Neutron medium-lift reusable rocket to launch constellations of satellites, national security and defense missions, and interplanetary missions from mid-2025.
Rocket Lab successfully launched its 51st Electron rocket on 2024-08-03 at 04:39 am NZT (16:39 UTC, 2024-08-02) from Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula.
Rocket Lab performed an advanced mid-mission maneuver with Electron’s Kick Stage on the 2024-08-03 mission to shield the StriX satellite from the sun and reduce radiation exposure on its way to orbit.
Rocket Lab provided a custom Electron fairing to encapsulate Synspective’s StriX satellite on the 2024-08-03 mission.