It took longer than expected, but Rocket Lab USA (RKLB +4.25%) is finally -- and officially -- a USA rocket launching company.
For 46 long days, Rocket Lab wrestled with government paperwork, coastal air flight restrictions, and most of all, Mother Nature, waiting for an opportune moment to conduct its first-ever launch of an Electron rocket from the continental United States. From Dec. 9 (when the rocket was supposed to launch) to Jan. 24 (when it finally did launch), investors waited. But it was worth the wait.
When Electron finally did launch late last month, it was an unqualified success. CEO Peter Beck had kind words for his team and others.
100% mission success, huge congratulations to the Rocket Lab team, @NASA_Wallops @Virginia_Space @FAANews @hawkeye360. Looks like everything works in the northern hemisphere also.
-- Peter Beck (@Peter_J_Beck) January 25, 2023
Rocket Lab stock has been pretty successful, too. After floating around $4 a share for much of the waiting period, the stock began climbing steadily in the back half of January. As of Friday's close, Rocket Lab stock is up 33% from where it began on Dec. 9.
NASDAQ: RKLB
Key Data Points
Light this candle
What's the connection between Rocket Lab's rather ordinary rocket launch and Rocket Lab's extraordinary stock price performance? I mean, SpaceX is launching rockets at a rate of more than once a week these days. Really, it comes down to this.
From its founding in 2006 to its first launch in 2017 and all the way up through November 2022, Rocket Lab USA had always been somewhat USA-in-name-only. None of the company's previous 32 successful launches were from the United States but rather from one of two launch sites in New Zealand. Although U.S. customers account for roughly three-quarters of Rocket Lab's business, up until January, they had to ship their payloads halfway around the world before Rocket Lab could launch them.
This is no longer the case.
On Jan. 24, at 6 p.m. ET, launching from Launch Complex-2 at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Virginia, Rocket Lab inaugurated a new growth phase in its life as a space company. Delivering three radio frequency geospatial analytics satellites to low Earth orbit for Virginia company HawkEye 360, the company announced with a roar that it's now able to launch U.S. companies' payloads directly into orbit from such customers' backyards.
Expanding to Virginia, Rocket Lab also grew its launch pad collection by 50%, to the point where -- at least theoretically, if it can find enough paying customers -- Rocket Lab should be able to launch as many as 130 rockets per year. Theoretically...this puts it in a position to compete with SpaceX itself, which is already planning to launch more than 100 rockets this year.
What it means to investors
In fact, of course, Rocket Lab is still a long way from launching anywhere near 130 rockets, much less 130 rockets per year. The company's most prolific year was 2022, and it launched only nine times -- fewer than once per month, let alone twice a week.
Nine rocket launches in a year probably worked out to about $208 million in revenue and a net loss of $133 million, in the opinion of analysts polled by S&P Global Market Intelligence. Moreover, Rocket Lab is still at least three years away from earning a profit. To break even on its business, the company will probably need somewhere between $700 million and $750 million in annual revenue, which implies a launch rate of 30 or more missions per year, plus contributions from the company's fast-growing space systems business (i.e., satellites, spacecraft parts, and space services).
What will it take for Rocket Lab to grow to this size and maybe even get there faster than 2025? Building a bigger rocket -- the Neutron, 40x the size of the Electron -- will help the company win orders from makers of larger satellites and owners of large satellite constellations. But having a spaceport located on the same continent where most of its customers live may help even more.
Rocket Lab made a bold move in moving to Virginia. Investors in Rocket Lab should pay close attention now to see whether the move causes more U.S. companies to award launch contracts to Rocket Lab.
