Long Beach, California, May 11, 2026, 13:12 PDT
- Rocket Lab shares rose about 11% in Monday afternoon trading, extending Friday’s 34% jump.
- The company crossed $200 million in quarterly revenue for the first time and guided to a higher second quarter.
- New defence and launch contracts pushed the focus onto Neutron, Golden Dome and Rocket Lab’s growing role beside larger space contractors.
Rocket Lab shares climbed again on Monday, extending a sharp rally after the Kiwi-founded space company reported record revenue, a bigger backlog and fresh U.S. defence work tied to missile defence and hypersonic testing. The stock was trading at $117.14 in Monday afternoon Nasdaq dealing, up about 11%, after touching $123.82 intraday.
The move matters now because investors are treating Rocket Lab less like a niche small-launch provider and more like a defence-and-space systems contractor with several routes into U.S. spending. The company said first-quarter revenue rose 63.5% from a year earlier to $200.3 million, while backlog hit $2.2 billion and second-quarter revenue is expected to reach $225 million to $240 million.
It also gives Rocket Lab a stronger hand before the first flight of Neutron, its larger reusable rocket designed to carry medium-size payloads and compete in a market still led by SpaceX’s Falcon 9. Rocket Lab said a confidential customer booked five Neutron launches and three Electron launches for missions planned from 2026 to 2029, its biggest launch deal so far.
Rocket Lab’s shares had already jumped 34.3% on Friday to an all-time high after the earnings release, the New Zealand Herald reported. Founder and Chief Executive Sir Peter Beck told analysts the company had been selected for the Space-Based Interceptor programme under Golden Dome, calling it one of the United States’ top national security priorities.
Golden Dome is the Trump administration’s planned U.S. missile-defence shield. Rocket Lab said it and Raytheon, part of RTX, were selected to demonstrate advanced capabilities for the U.S. Space Force’s Space-Based Interceptor programme; Brad Clevenger, president of Rocket Lab USA, said the team was bringing “a proven team” to the work. GlobeNewswire
The company also won a $30 million contract from defence technology firm Anduril for three HASTE hypersonic test launches from Virginia. HASTE is a modified Electron vehicle used for suborbital tests; hypersonic means speeds above Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound. Beck said Rocket Lab and Anduril were “bridging the gap” between research and operational deployment. GlobeNewswire
Rocket Lab’s launch backlog now includes more than 70 missions. On the earnings call, management said HASTE accounted for almost one-third of launch backlog after a $190 million, 20-launch order through Kratos and the Department of War’s MACH-TB hypersonic test programme.
The company is also buying Motiv Space Systems, a Pasadena, California-based robotics and spacecraft mechanisms business. Rocket Lab said the deal would bring in-house parts such as solar array drive assemblies and other precision mechanisms, which can be expensive or hard to source when building satellite constellations at scale.
The growth was not only launch-driven. A regulatory filing showed space systems revenue rose 57% to $136.7 million in the quarter, while launch services revenue rose 79% to $63.7 million, helped by six Electron missions, higher revenue per launch and HASTE work.
But the rally leaves little room for slips. Rocket Lab is still loss-making, with a $45.0 million net loss in the first quarter, and its filing said revenue and profit can swing if costs are revised, schedules slip or contract milestones are delayed. Neutron is central to the story, and the company has said further delays or setbacks could mean more spending than expected.
Cash gives Rocket Lab some cover. The company had $1.2 billion in cash and cash equivalents and $271.3 million of marketable securities at March 31, and said its current resources should meet working capital and capital expenditure needs for at least the next 12 months. It also used $50.3 million in operating cash during the quarter.
For now, the market is rewarding contract momentum over the red ink. The next test is whether Rocket Lab can turn a crowded manifest and Pentagon demand into repeatable launches, while getting Neutron to the pad before expectations outrun execution.
