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 will act as prime contractor under a $515,000,000 firm-fixed-price agreement to lead the design, development, production, test, and operations of 18 T2TL-Beta satellites, including procurement and integration of payload subsystems.
The ‘Four of a Kind’ mission will launch from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand.
Rocket Lab’s Long Beach spacecraft facility includes a 12,000-square-foot cleanroom and 40,000 square feet of streamlined production and test facilities designed to support constellation-class manufacturing and satellite assembly, integration, and test for commercial, civil, and national security customers.
The Rocket Lab prime contractor contract establishes Rocket Lab’s position as a satellite prime contractor providing supply chain diversity to the Department of Defense through vertical integration.
Rocket Lab USA, Inc. has been selected by the Space Development Agency to design and build 18 Tranche 2 Transport Layer-Beta Data Transport Satellites (T2TL – Beta).
The Space Development Agency awarded Rocket Lab a $515,000,000 contract to build and operate 18 spacecraft that will be part of a low Earth orbit network of military satellites.
Rocket Lab USA, Inc. (Nasdaq: RKLB) set the launch window for the ‘Four of a Kind’ mission no earlier than 2024-01-18 between 19:15-20:00 NZT (2024-01-18 between 06:15-07:00 UTC).
The 18 satellites will be built at Rocket Lab’s spacecraft development and manufacturing complex in Long Beach, which includes a 12,000-square-foot cleanroom and 40,000 square feet of production and test facilities.
Rocket Lab is developing a larger rocket called Neutron that is projected to debut in 2025.
The T2TL – Beta satellites will be built at Rocket Lab’s advanced spacecraft development and manufacturing complex within the company’s Long Beach, California headquarters.
Rocket Lab was selected by the Space Development Agency to design and build 18 Tranche 2 Transport Layer-Beta Data Transport Satellites (T2TL-Beta).
The satellite buses for the Space Development Agency will be a derivative of the buses Rocket Lab is developing for the communications company Globalstar.
The ST-16RT2 from Rocket Lab has an absolute accuracy of 5–55 arcsec, a maximum slew rate of 3 deg/sec, a mass of 0.158 kg, a field of view of 7.5 x 10 deg (half-angle), requires a DC supply of 9–34 V, consumes up to 1 W, and measures 62 x 56 x 0.038 m.
The RW-0.01 from Rocket Lab requires a DC supply of 3.4-6 V and has a power consumption of up to 1.05 W while measuring 50 × 50 × 0.03 m.
The RW-0.01 from Rocket Lab has a torque of ±1 mNm, a momentum of up to 0.018 Nms, a mass of 0.12 kg, and uses diamond-coated hybrid ball bearings with redundant motor windings.
The RW-0.01 10 mNms reaction wheel from Rocket Lab is designed for smaller CubeSats with an orbital lifetime of 10 years.
Rocket Lab established a national security subsidiary focused on the U.S. defense and intelligence market in 2022.
Rocket Lab National Security is the Rocket Lab subsidiary named in an SEC filing dated 2023-12-21 as the party that will design, manufacture, deliver, and operate 18 space vehicles.
Rocket Lab won two contracts in 2022 worth $14,000,000 to provide separation systems for Space Development Agency satellites.
Work under Rocket Lab’s agreement will begin immediately with delivery of the space vehicles for launch slated for 2027.