Rocket Lab USA Inc (RKLB) — Company Research

Last Updated: 6 September 2026

Rocket Lab has done something unusual for a space company: it has grown revenue from $62m to $602m in four years while its share price round-tripped from $37 to $151 and back to $64. The operating business keeps setting records — $234m of revenue in the June 2026 quarter, a $2.36bn backlog, 94 Electron launches flown, and a national-security franchise now worth well over $2bn in awarded contracts. What the market is discounting is everything sitting on top of that: a Neutron rocket that has slipped at least three times and may not fly until 2027, an $8bn agreement to buy Iridium Communications backed by a $3.6bn bridge loan, and $2.7bn of equity issued through at-the-market programmes in eighteen months. This report lays out both halves from the filings.

1. Company Snapshot

Field	Value
Legal name	Rocket Lab Corporation (Rocket Lab USA, Inc. became a wholly owned subsidiary of the new parent on 23 May 2025)
Ticker / exchange	RKLB, Nasdaq Global Select Market
Headquarters	Long Beach, California, with launch complexes at Mahia, New Zealand and Wallops Island, Virginia
Sector	Aerospace and defence — launch services and space systems
Market cap	~$41.1bn (639.4m shares including 41.0m Series A preferred on an as-converted basis, at the $64.26 close on 4 September 2026)
Revenue (FY2025)	$601.8m, up 38% year on year; trailing twelve-month revenue $769.1m
Net loss (FY2025)	$198.2m, or $(0.37) per diluted share
Backlog	$2.36bn at 30 June 2026, up 137% year on year
Cash and marketable securities	$2,302.2m at 30 June 2026 (cash $2,129.5m plus current marketable securities $172.7m)
Employees	Over 2,600 full-time permanent employees worldwide at 31 December 2025
CEO / Leadership	Sir Peter Beck, founder, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman; Adam Spice, Chief Financial Officer
Launch record	94 Electron missions flown to 2 September 2026; 21 Electron and HASTE missions in 2025 with 100% mission success

Sources: Rocket Lab FY2025 Form 10-K (filed 26 February 2026), Q2 2026 results release (10 August 2026), and SEC XBRL company facts.

2. Bull Case and Bear Case

Bull Case

• Revenue is compounding at an extraordinary rate: $62.2m in FY2021 to $601.8m in FY2025 is a 76.3% compound annual growth rate, and the trailing twelve months already stands at $769.1m. Q3 2026 is guided to $250m–$265m, which would be a fifth consecutive record quarter.
• Backlog gives unusual visibility: $2.36bn at 30 June 2026, up 137% year on year and more than three times trailing revenue. Rocket Lab booked over $437m of new launch contracts in the June quarter alone across Electron, HASTE and Neutron.
• A genuine national-security franchise: the Space Development Agency has awarded more than $1.3bn in total, including 18 Tranche 2 Transport Layer Beta satellites and an $816m Tranche 3 Tracking Layer prime contract. Add a $397m Flatellite award for the Space Force's SB-AMTI programme, a $266m Kodiak suborbital award in July 2026, and an on-ramp to the $5.6bn NSSL Phase 3 Lane 1 vehicle.
• The balance sheet has been rebuilt: cash and marketable securities of $2.30bn at 30 June 2026 against borrowings of just $14.8m, after the 4.250% convertible notes were converted down from $345.4m at end-2024 to $13.1m. On any conventional measure the company is heavily net cash.
• Vertical integration is real, not a slide: Space Systems is now the larger business at $402.8m of FY2025 revenue, spanning satellite buses, solar cells, star trackers, reaction wheels, separation systems, EO/IR payloads through GEOST and laser optical terminals through Mynaric. Rocket Lab increasingly sells the spacecraft as well as the ride.

Bear Case

• Neutron has slipped again and may miss 2026 entirely: originally targeted for 2024, then mid-2026, then reset to Q4 2026 after a Stage 1 tank qualification failure in January 2026. As of early September 2026 the company still guides to delivering the vehicle to the pad in Q4 2026, while independent reporting describes the window as narrowing and a slip into 2027 as increasingly likely.
• The Iridium acquisition changes the risk profile entirely: announced 29 June 2026 at roughly $8bn enterprise value, $54 per Iridium share in cash and stock, funded in part by a $3.6bn 364-day senior secured bridge loan from Deutsche Bank and Wells Fargo, plus further planned debt and equity. It is not expected to close until mid-2027, leaving a twelve-month financing overhang.
• Relentless equity issuance: at-the-market offerings raised $1,146.1m in FY2025 and a further $1,529.6m in the first half of 2026. Shares outstanding rose from 504.5m at end-2024 to 598.2m at 30 June 2026. Growth here is being bought with paper.
• Losses are widening in absolute terms: the FY2025 operating loss of $228.8m was the largest in the company's history and the trailing twelve-month operating loss is $223.5m. Free cash flow over the same period was negative $371.1m as capital expenditure ran at $148.7m. No date for GAAP profitability has been guided.
• The valuation still embeds a great deal: at roughly 53 times trailing sales with no earnings, the shares price in Neutron working and the Space Systems franchise scaling. That multiple is what fell by 58% between May and September 2026 without any deterioration in the operating numbers, which shows how sensitive it is to sentiment.

3. Revenue Segments

Rocket Lab reports two segments. The balance flipped decisively toward Space Systems in 2024 and has widened since; in the June 2026 quarter Space Systems was more than four times the size of Launch Services.

Segment	% of revenue	What it is
Space Systems	66.9% of FY2025 revenue ($402.8m); ~81% of Q2 2026 revenue ($189.5m)	Satellite manufacture and spacecraft components. Includes the SDA Transport and Tracking Layer constellations, the Flatellite product line, solar cells from the SolAero acquisition, star trackers, reaction wheels, radios, separation systems, flight software, EO/IR sensor payloads via GEOST and laser optical communications terminals via Mynaric. Components have supported over 1,700 missions.
Launch Services	33.1% of FY2025 revenue ($199.0m); ~19% of Q2 2026 revenue (~$44.6m)	Dedicated small-satellite launch on Electron from Mahia and Wallops, plus the HASTE suborbital variant used for US Department of Defense hypersonic testing. Customers include Synspective, iQPS, BlackSky and Kinéis. Neutron, the medium-lift reusable vehicle, will sit in this segment once it flies.
Neutron and future programmes	Nil to date — no Neutron revenue recognised	The 13-tonne-class reusable rocket in development at Wallops Launch Complex 3, with the Archimedes engine, the "Hungry Hippo" fairing and the "Return On Investment" sea-landing barge. Contracted but unflown work includes the NSSL Phase 3 Lane 1 on-ramp and an AFRL point-to-point cargo demonstration.

4. Business Model and Moat

How it makes money. Two ways, and the smaller one is the famous one. Launch Services sells dedicated rides on Electron, a small rocket that has flown 94 times and carries a few hundred kilograms; the pricing model is a premium for schedule control and orbital precision rather than the cost-per-kilogram economics that favour rideshare. Space Systems, now two-thirds of revenue, sells satellites and satellite parts — either as a prime contractor building entire constellations for the Space Development Agency, or as a component supplier whose solar cells and star trackers fly on other people's spacecraft. Contracts in the second segment are larger, longer and mostly government-funded.

What the moat is supposed to be. Vertical integration plus a launch record. Rocket Lab owns its engines, its avionics, its solar cells, its separation systems and two launch complexes, which means it can bid a mission end-to-end and control its own schedule. The 2025 cadence of 21 launches with 100% mission success is a credential very few companies can offer, and it is what qualified Neutron for the NSSL Phase 3 Lane 1 on-ramp in March 2025. In defence work, a demonstrated flight heritage functions as a genuine barrier: the Space Development Agency has now routed more than $1.3bn through the company.

Why the moat is contested. SpaceX exists, is now publicly listed, and flies at a cadence and cost Rocket Lab cannot match on the launch side. Neutron is explicitly an attempt to move up-market into the medium-lift segment SpaceX dominates, against a competitor that has already amortised reusability. On the satellite side, the competitive set includes established primes as well as newer entrants such as Redwire and Karman. Rocket Lab's structural advantage is therefore narrower than the vertical-integration story implies: it is strongest where a customer wants a single supplier for both the spacecraft and the launch, which is exactly what the SB-AMTI Flatellite award represents.

5. Financial Health

All figures below come from Rocket Lab's own quarterly and annual results releases and from SEC XBRL company facts. Rocket Lab publishes no adjusted earnings per share in any period — its non-GAAP headline is adjusted EBITDA — so the adjusted column repeats GAAP with a footnote.

Fiscal Year	Revenue ($m)	YoY %	GAAP EPS	Adjusted EPS	Dividend/share	Long-term debt (YE)
FY2021	$62.2m	+77.0%	$(0.56)	$(0.56)†	Nil	$100.1m
FY2022	$211.0m	+239.0%	$(0.29)	$(0.29)†	Nil	$102.9m
FY2023	$244.6m	+15.9%	$(0.38)	$(0.38)†	Nil	$105.4m
FY2024	$436.2m	+78.3%	$(0.38)	$(0.38)†	Nil	$401.5m
FY2025	$601.8m	+38.0%	$(0.37)	$(0.37)†	Nil	$154.1m

† Rocket Lab does not report an adjusted or non-GAAP earnings-per-share figure in any period. The GAAP figure is repeated so the column is not left blank. Adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $8.8m in Q2 2026 and a loss of $11.8m in Q1 2026.

The long-term debt column is the sum of all interest-bearing borrowings at each year end, taken from the XBRL balance sheet: secured borrowings of roughly $100m through FY2021 to FY2023, then the addition of $355m of 4.250% convertible senior notes issued in February 2024, which stepped the FY2024 total to $401.5m. Those notes were largely converted during 2025 and 2026, taking the carrying value from $345.4m at end-2024 to $152.4m at end-2025 and $13.1m at 30 June 2026. Total borrowings at 30 June 2026 were $14.8m. Aggregator "total debt" figures of around $133.7m include operating and finance lease liabilities of roughly $119m, which are not borrowings.

Quarter / Half	Revenue ($m)	Adjusted EPS	GAAP EPS
Q2 2026 (to 30 Jun 2026)	$234.1m	$(0.08)†	$(0.08)
Q1 2026 (to 31 Mar 2026)	$200.3m	$(0.07)†	$(0.07)
Q4 2025 (to 31 Dec 2025)	$179.7m	$(0.09)†	$(0.09)
Q3 2025 (to 30 Sep 2025)	$155.1m	$(0.03)†	$(0.03)
Q2 2025 (to 30 Jun 2025)	$144.5m	$(0.13)†	$(0.13)
FY2025 total	$601.8m	$(0.37)†	$(0.37)

Gross margin is improving as Space Systems scales: GAAP gross profit was $84.6m in Q2 2026 on $234.1m of revenue, a 36.1% margin, against 38.2% in Q1 2026 and 38.0% in Q4 2025; non-GAAP gross margin was 41.5% in Q2 2026. Guidance for Q3 2026 is revenue of $250m to $265m, GAAP gross margin of 29% to 31%, and an adjusted EBITDA loss of $17m to $23m — the margin step-down reflecting mix. Over the trailing twelve months to 30 June 2026, operating cash flow was an outflow of $222.5m, capital expenditure was $148.7m, and depreciation and amortisation was $62.4m.

6. Valuation Metrics

Raw metrics, September 2026. Not opinions on whether the stock is cheap or expensive.

Metric	Value
Market cap	~$41.1bn (639,410,989 shares at the $64.26 close on 4 September 2026). The share count includes 40,951,250 Series A preferred shares held by founder Sir Peter Beck's Equatorial Trust, which convert one-for-one into common and vote as a single class; the common-only count was 598,180,438 at 30 June 2026.
Enterprise value	~$38.8bn (market cap ~$41.1bn + total borrowings $14.8m − cash and current marketable securities $2,302.2m per the 30 June 2026 balance sheet). A further $85.4m of non-current marketable securities is excluded. This figure does not reflect the $3.6bn bridge facility committed for the Iridium acquisition, which is undrawn and does not close until mid-2027.
Trailing P/E (GAAP)	n/m — trailing twelve-month diluted EPS is $(0.27), a loss. Rocket Lab has never reported a profitable year and publishes no adjusted earnings-per-share measure that could produce an alternative multiple.
P/E (forward)	~1,446x on a consensus forward EPS of $0.04. The company itself guides only to revenue, gross margin and adjusted EBITDA, and guides an adjusted EBITDA loss of $17m to $23m for Q3 2026, so the forward multiple rests on a very small and uncertain denominator.
P/S (TTM)	~53x (market cap ~$41.1bn / trailing twelve-month revenue $769.1m, being Q3 2025 through Q2 2026)
EV/EBITDA (TTM)	n/m — trailing twelve-month EBITDA is negative $161.1m (operating loss of $223.5m plus depreciation and amortisation of $62.4m, using the combined cash-flow-statement figure). The company reports adjusted EBITDA rather than EBITDA, and that was a loss of $8.8m in Q2 2026.
P/FCF	n/m — trailing twelve-month free cash flow is negative $371.1m (operating cash flow $(222.5)m less capital expenditure of $148.7m). Capital expenditure more than doubled in FY2025 to $156.3m as Neutron infrastructure was built.
52-week high	$151.00 intraday on 27 May 2026; $150.23 on a closing basis
52-week low	$37.57 intraday; $39.48 on a closing basis
Short interest (% of float)	8.0% (44,395,701 shares short against a 556,860,860-share free float), settlement date 14 August 2026. Aggregators quoting 7.5% are using a slightly larger float denominator.
Days to cover	2.3 days on the same 14 August 2026 settlement. Low, reflecting very heavy average daily volume of roughly 15–19m shares.
Price/book	~11.8x (market cap ~$41.1bn against shareholders' equity of $3,492.2m at 30 June 2026, itself up from $382.5m at end-2024 on equity issuance and note conversion)

The drawdown itself is worth reading on a chart rather than in prose — the ChartsView Live Charts page carries the full history.

7. What Are They Building

Neutron. A 13-tonne-class, reusable, medium-lift launch vehicle and the single largest determinant of the equity's value. Progress through 2026 has been real but slower than promised. The Archimedes engine has logged more than 400 hot-fires, and a second-stage engine has completed a full-duration burn of roughly five and a half minutes at the Archimedes Test Complex at NASA's Stennis Space Center. The "Hungry Hippo" fairing has completed qualification and been delivered to the assembly and integration complex in Virginia; the thrust structure is qualified and the interstage is in qualification. Launch Complex 3 at Wallops Island is open, with a 700-tonne launch mount, a 200,000-gallon water tower and liquid oxygen and liquid natural gas propellant farms. The gating item has been the first stage: a tank qualification test failed in January 2026, forcing a redesign for greater structural margin and a move toward automated fibre placement on future tanks, and pushing the debut to Q4 2026. As of early September 2026 the company still targets delivering the vehicle to the pad within the year, while independent coverage treats a 2027 first flight as increasingly likely.

Sea recovery. A 400-foot modified deck barge, the former Oceanus, renamed "Return On Investment" and converted by Bollinger Shipyards in Louisiana with autonomous ground-support equipment, blast shielding and station-keeping thrusters. It is intended to support Neutron booster recoveries off the US East Coast.

Flatellite and the constellation business. Flatellite is a flat-packed, mass-manufacturable satellite designed to be stacked in volume on Neutron. In August 2026 Rocket Lab disclosed a $397m contract, including options, to deliver multiple Flatellite spacecraft launching on Neutron for the Space Force's Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator programme — one of only two vendors providing both the spacecraft and the launch. Alongside it sit the Space Development Agency programmes: 18 Tranche 2 Transport Layer Beta satellites under a $515m award with a launch commitment no later than July 2027, and an $816m Tranche 3 Tracking Layer prime contract for 18 missile-tracking spacecraft.

Acquired capability. GEOST closed on 12 August 2025 for $275m before adjustments, roughly $125m in cash plus 3,057,588 shares, with up to $50m of earn-out, adding electro-optical and infrared sensor payloads. Mynaric closed on 14 April 2026 for $155.3m, above the originally agreed price, after final German foreign-direct-investment approval on 31 March 2026, adding laser optical communications terminals and establishing Rocket Lab Europe. Motiv also closed in the June 2026 quarter, and two smaller 2025 deals brought in Optical Support Inc. and Precision Components Limited.

Electron and HASTE. The workhorse continues. The 94th Electron mission flew on 2 September 2026 for Synspective, which has 16 further missions on the manifest; the 93rd flew on 20 August 2026. iQPS took its third Electron launch in three months on 6 August 2026, BlackSky added four dedicated launches in February 2026 taking its cumulative total to 17 since 2019, and Kinéis has five satellites scheduled. The HASTE suborbital variant serves US Department of Defense hypersonic testing, and a new globally deployable launch system branded GHOST was unveiled in August 2026 with a debut suborbital launch from Kodiak planned for 2027.

8. Competitive Landscape

Peer	Market cap (September 2026)	Key 2025/2026 metric
AST SpaceMobile (ASTS)	~$24.2bn	Trailing revenue of ~$115m against a $24.2bn capitalisation — roughly 210 times sales, versus Rocket Lab's 53 times. The direct-to-device constellation build-out is still pre-commercial at scale.
Planet Labs (PL)	~$6.6bn	Trailing revenue of ~$378m from Earth-observation imagery and data subscriptions. A satellite operator rather than a manufacturer, and a customer archetype for the constellations Rocket Lab builds.
Karman Holdings (KRMN)	~$5.3bn	Trailing revenue of ~$590m from missile, hypersonic and space propulsion components — the closest comparison to Rocket Lab's Space Systems components business, and profitable where Rocket Lab is not.
Firefly Aerospace (FLY)	~$3.6bn	Trailing revenue of ~$287m. The most direct small-launch competitor, with the Alpha vehicle and the Blue Ghost lunar lander; listed publicly in 2025.
Redwire (RDW)	~$2.6bn	Trailing revenue of ~$426m from space infrastructure, components and in-space manufacturing. Competes with Rocket Lab's components catalogue on solar arrays and structures.

Two names sit outside the table but shape the landscape. SpaceX listed on Nasdaq on 12 June 2026 after pricing its IPO at $135 per share on 11 June, closing its first day near a $2.1 trillion valuation; it operates at a launch cadence and cost base no competitor approaches, and Neutron is a direct move into its territory. Iridium Communications, capitalised at roughly $5.0bn on trailing revenue of $884m, is Rocket Lab's own acquisition target rather than a peer — the $8bn enterprise-value agreement announced on 29 June 2026 would convert Rocket Lab from a supplier into an operator of a global satellite network.

9. Insider Activity

Founder and Chief Executive Sir Peter Beck is the only insider with material disclosed 2026 Form 4 activity identified in this review. The sales below were made through the Equatorial Trust, a family trust, under a Rule 10b5-1 plan adopted on 27 March 2026 — that is, scheduled in advance rather than discretionary — and were executed over three consecutive days near the all-time high. Beck retained 491,930 shares held directly after the programme, and the trust continues to hold 40,951,250 Series A preferred shares convertible one-for-one into common. No open-market purchases by any insider were identified.

Name	Date	Type	Shares	Price	Value	Plan Type
Sir Peter Beck (CEO), via The Equatorial Trust	6–8 Jul 2026	Sale	3,275,779 in aggregate	$81.59 to $101.57 weighted average	~$286.4m	Rule 10b5-1 plan adopted 27 Mar 2026
Sir Peter Beck (CEO), via The Equatorial Trust	8 Jul 2026	Sale (single-day leg)	Included in the aggregate above	Within the range above	~$94.0m	Rule 10b5-1 plan adopted 27 Mar 2026
The Equatorial Trust	Q2 2026	Conversion	5,000,000	One-for-one	Not a cash transaction	Series A preferred to common conversion
The Equatorial Trust	17 Jun 2025	Conversion	5,000,000	One-for-one	Not a cash transaction	Series A preferred to common conversion

Context on the preferred stock: on 3 December 2024 Rocket Lab agreed to exchange 50,951,250 of the trust's common shares into an equal number of Series A preferred shares, consummated on 7 January 2025. The structure is share-count neutral — the preferred votes and converts one-for-one — but it is why the reported common share count and the fully-counted market capitalisation differ.

10. Key Risks

• Neutron schedule risk: the vehicle has slipped from 2024 to mid-2026 to Q4 2026, with a Stage 1 tank qualification failure in January 2026 forcing a redesign. A first flight is not the end of the risk either — a failed debut would push revenue recognition, the AFRL cargo demonstration and the NSSL task orders further right, and Neutron is the basis for the Flatellite constellation contracts.
• Iridium acquisition financing: the roughly $8bn deal is backed by a $3.6bn 364-day senior secured bridge loan, with further debt and equity planned, on a company generating $769m of trailing revenue and no profit. The exchange ratio is collared between $67.50 and $112.50, so a share price below the collar increases the cash and dilution burden. Completion is not expected until mid-2027.
• Dilution: at-the-market equity programmes raised $1,146.1m in FY2025 and $1,529.6m in the first half of 2026 alone. Common shares outstanding rose 18.6% in eighteen months to 598.2m. Continued growth spending on this scale implies continued issuance.
• Cash consumption: trailing twelve-month free cash flow was negative $371.1m, with capital expenditure at $148.7m and rising. The $2.30bn cash pile is large but is earmarked in part for the Iridium cash consideration and Neutron infrastructure.
• Customer and programme concentration: a growing share of backlog is US government work — the SDA Tranche 2 and Tranche 3 awards, the SB-AMTI Flatellite contract, the Kodiak suborbital award and NSSL task orders. Programme cancellations, continuing-resolution funding gaps or a shift in defence priorities would hit disproportionately.
• Competition from a newly capitalised SpaceX: SpaceX's June 2026 listing gives an already dominant launch provider public currency for acquisitions and expansion, in the same medium-lift segment Neutron is designed to enter.
• Integration load: GEOST, Mynaric, Motiv, Optical Support and Precision Components have all been absorbed since August 2025, with headcount rising several hundred in a single quarter. Rocket Lab is running an acquisition programme, a first-flight campaign and an $8bn merger simultaneously.

11. Recent Developments

• 02 Sep 2026 — 94th Electron mission flies. A successful launch for Synspective, which has 16 further missions on the manifest, eleven days after the 93rd mission on 20 August 2026.
• 10 Aug 2026 — Q2 2026 results set records across the board. Revenue of $234.1m, up 62% year on year; backlog $2.36bn, up 137%; GAAP gross margin 36.1% and non-GAAP 41.5%; adjusted EBITDA loss $8.8m; GAAP loss per share $(0.08). Q3 2026 guided to $250m–$265m of revenue. A $397m Flatellite contract for the Space Force SB-AMTI programme was disclosed, the GHOST launch system was unveiled, and the Mynaric and Motiv acquisitions were confirmed closed.
• 21 Jul 2026 — $266m US Space Force award. Twelve suborbital missions with six options from Kodiak, Alaska — described as the largest single US government launch award in the company's history.
• 06 Jul 2026 — Chief Executive sells $286m of stock. Sir Peter Beck, through the Equatorial Trust and under a 10b5-1 plan adopted in March 2026, sold 3,275,779 shares over three days at $81.59 to $101.57.
• 29 Jun 2026 — Agreement to acquire Iridium Communications. Roughly $8bn enterprise value, $54 per Iridium share as $27 cash plus stock on a collared exchange ratio, funded partly by a $3.6bn bridge loan from Deutsche Bank and Wells Fargo. Rocket Lab rose 16% and Iridium 25% on the day; closing is expected mid-2027.
• 12 Jun 2026 — SpaceX begins trading on Nasdaq. Priced at $135 the previous day, it closed its first session near a $2.1 trillion valuation. The run-up into and unwind out of the listing is the proximate cause of the space-stock cohort's round trip.
• 27 May 2026 — Rocket Lab shares reach an all-time intraday high of $151.00. The peak came a week after SpaceX filed its IPO prospectus on 20 May 2026.
• 14 Apr 2026 — Mynaric acquisition completes. $155.3m, above the originally agreed price, in a nominal cash payment plus 2,277,002 shares, adding laser optical communications and creating Rocket Lab Europe. Final German foreign-direct-investment approval had come on 31 March 2026.
• 26 Feb 2026 — FY2025 results. Record annual revenue of $601.8m, up 38%; Q4 revenue $179.7m; backlog $1.85bn, up 73%, including the $816m SDA Tranche 3 Tracking Layer prime contract. Neutron's first launch was reset to Q4 2026 following a Stage 1 tank qualification test failure in January 2026.
• 12 Aug 2025 — GEOST acquisition completes. $275m before adjustments plus up to $50m of earn-out, adding electro-optical and infrared payloads to a portfolio that already covered launch and spacecraft.

12. Key Dates

• Expected Nov 2026 — Q3 2026 results. Rocket Lab has not confirmed a date; aggregators variously estimate the week of 9 November and 16 November 2026, and Q2 2026 was reported on 10 August 2026.
• Expected Q4 2026 — Neutron delivery to Launch Complex 3 at Wallops Island, with a first launch attempt to follow. Independent reporting treats a slip into early 2027 as increasingly likely.
• Expected 2027 — Debut suborbital launch of the GHOST globally deployable launch system from Launch Complex 4 at Kodiak, Alaska.
• Expected Jul 2027 — Contractual launch commitment for the 18 Space Development Agency Tranche 2 Transport Layer Beta satellites, which must launch no later than that month.
• Expected mid-2027 — Anticipated completion of the Iridium Communications acquisition, subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals; the $3.6bn bridge facility is a 364-day instrument.
• 01 Feb 2029 — Scheduled maturity of the 4.250% convertible senior notes issued in February 2024, of which only $13.1m of carrying value remained at 30 June 2026.
• TBC — Electron and HASTE missions continue on a rolling manifest for Synspective, iQPS, BlackSky and Kinéis; individual launch windows are announced a few weeks ahead.

Macro events that move the defence and high-growth-technology complex are tracked on the ChartsView Economic Calendar, and this report can be discussed in the ChartsView Forum.

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