Rocket Lab

Rocket Lab Corporation is a publicly traded aerospace manufacturer and launch service provider. Its Electron orbital rocket launches small satellites, and has launched 63 times as of April 2025. A sub-orbital Electron variant called HASTE (Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron) serves other needs. The company also supplies satellite components including star trackers, reaction wheels, solar cells and arrays, satellite radios, separation systems, as well as flight and ground software.

The expendable Electron rocket first launched in May 2017. In August 2020, the company launched its first Photon satellite. The company built and operates satellites for the Space Development Agency, part of the United States Space Force. In May 2022, the company attempted to recover a returning Electron booster with a helicopter. In 2024, the company announced that a booster recovered on an earlier launch would be reused.

Rocket Lab was founded in New Zealand in 2006. By 2009, the successful launch of Ātea-1 made the organization the first private company in the Southern Hemisphere to reach space. The company established its headquarters in California in 2013. Rocket Lab acquired four companies, including Sinclair Interplanetary in April 2020, Advanced Solutions in December 2021, SolAero Holdings in January 2022, and Planetary Systems in December 2021. As of June 2024, the company had approximately 2,000 full-time permanent employees globally. Approximately 700 of these employees were based in New Zealand with the remainder in the United States. In August 2021, the company went public on the Nasdaq stock exchange through a SPAC merger.