Rocket Lab USA, Inc. RKLB

Key data

The business

Rocket Lab sells two things today. Electron puts a few hundred kilograms into orbit for defence agencies and commercial constellation operators, who pay per mission on contracts booked years ahead. Space Systems builds and sells the hardware inside other people's satellites: solar arrays, reaction wheels, separation systems, flight software, and increasingly complete satellite buses. Space Systems is the larger half and the reason there is $602M of revenue at all.

The economic engine is visibly working underneath the loss. Gross margin moved from 21.0% in 2023 to 34.4% in 2025 and 36.1% in the June 2026 quarter, on revenue that grew 38.0% to $602M and then 62.0% year on year to $234.1M last quarter. Backlog reached $2.36B at June 30, 2026, up 137%. What changed is that the components half started scaling faster than launch.

Business read. Two working businesses fund a third one that has not flown yet.

Things you might not know

Research and development cost $271M in 2025 against $207M of gross profit, so the development program consumed more than the entire commercial business earned. Losses held roughly flat at $182.6M, $190.2M and $198.2M across three years while revenue grew 146%, which makes the burn a fixed program cost rather than a widening hole.

The share count moved far more than the annual filings suggest. Diluted shares averaged 530.7M in FY2025 but 629.7M in the June 2026 quarter, and basic weighted shares were 641M including roughly 41M of Series A convertible participating preferred. Equity is the funding mechanism, and it accelerated sharply after year end.

Cash and cash equivalents were $2.13B at June 30, 2026, with marketable securities taking the total to $2.39B, against debt to equity of 0.04x at year end 2025. Set against roughly $270M a year of development spend, that is years of runway, so a near-term financing squeeze is not the live risk here.

Fundamentals

Revenue is compounding fast and margin is holding in the mid thirties, though the June quarter gave back 2.1 points against March as mix shifted toward larger spacecraft work. Backlog up 137% is the strongest number on the page, because commercial pull has to exist before Neutron capacity means anything. Loss per share did not move at all.

Valuation

Comparison set: AST SpaceMobile, Planet Labs, Redwire, Intuitive Machines, Firefly Aerospace.

Peer medians were not pulled in this run, so the right column is honest rather than useful. The company column carries the point on its own: 54.6 times sales and 13.1 times book against negative free cash flow prices a rocket that has not yet flown.

Management

Compensation

The linchpins

Win big if

Neutron reaches orbit and then reaches cadence, which turns Rocket Lab into the second credible medium-lift provider in the West at a moment when constellation operators and national security customers have both stated a preference for a second supplier, and it does so while Space Systems keeps compounding at the 62.0% rate it just posted. The first observable proof is a successful first flight. The confirming signal is a funded cadence plan with named anchor customers and backlog growth above the current $2.36B that is attributable to Neutron rather than to satellite manufacturing.

Surprised down if

The first flight slips beyond the stated window while research and development stays near $270M a year, because each quarter of delay burns cash against a revenue base that cannot cover it and pushes the funding back onto equity that has already grown to 641M basic shares. The first observable proof is a schedule change on an earnings call. The confirming signal is another equity or preferred issuance on top of that count, or gross margin falling back below 34% on fixed-price development work, which is the common failure mode in this industry.

Last word

A $2.36B backlog buys a great deal of patience, though none of it launches a rocket.