Rocket Lab said its fourth-quarter revenue rose 38% from a year earlier to $180 million as the space company continued to lean on its small-satellite launch business while pressing ahead with a larger rocket meant to change its place in the market. The company flew seven Electron missions in the quarter and said it delivered a 100% success rate for customers in both the public and private sectors.
The numbers matter because Rocket Lab is not a private moonshot. It is a publicly traded company, with a market value of $38 billion, that regular investors can buy and sell like any other stock. For holders of rklb stock, the appeal is clear: Electron can carry payloads of up to 300 kg into low-Earth orbit, while Neutron is expected to lift as much as 8,000 kg, opening a far larger slice of the launch market.
That is the story management has been selling for years. Rocket Lab has cast itself as a smaller public competitor trying to carve out space alongside bigger early movers such as SpaceX and Blue Origin, while building more of the stack itself through satellite design, manufacturing, launch and long-term operations. Analysts at McKinsey & Company have projected the global space economy could be worth $1.8 trillion by 2035, a figure that helps explain why investors keep giving the company room to promise more than the current numbers alone justify.
The friction is in the calendar. Rocket Lab management now expects Neutron’s first launch in the fourth quarter of this year, after previously saying the rocket would fly in 2025 and then in 2024. Some analysts think early 2027 is a more realistic deadline. The gap matters because Neutron is supposed to be the bridge between Rocket Lab’s existing business and its bigger ambitions, but the company is still burning cash; it reported an operating loss of $51 million in the fourth quarter alone.
That leaves investors with a company that is growing fast, executing well on its current rocket and still asking the market to wait for the rocket that is supposed to make the whole model scale. SpaceX is expected to be a $1.75 trillion behemoth, and Blue Origin’s New Glenn is expected to carry 45 tons, so Rocket Lab’s next launch window is not just a milestone. It is the point at which the company has to prove the future it has been selling can arrive on schedule.
