Rocket Lab Q4: Record Revenue, Neutron Delay, and a New Constellation Sat Offering

Rocket Lab posted record revenue in 2024 with 78% year-over-year growth, but also pushed its plans for the first Neutron launch to the second half of 2025. 

Rocket Lab reported full year financials on Feb. 27, along with a new eight-launch deal with Japanese company iQPS and a new satellite offering called Flatellite geared toward large-scale constellations. 

Rocket Lab was most recently targeting mid-2025 for the first launch of the medium-lift Neutron rocket, and had previously worked toward a 2024 debut. Neutron’s goal is to reach orbit on the first launch, CEO Peter Beck told investors on Thursday. 

“We’re giving ourselves a little bit more time to get [Neutron] to the pad and get the launch,” Beck said, addressing the schedule slip. “But we’re talking months here. It’s not very material.”

Beck explained that when the development program began during COVID, Rocket Lab faced long lead times on steel and CNC machines which impacted the overall schedule. Some of the issues have been with suppliers. 

“There’s no one thing. It’s not like we had a giant engine failure or a tank failure or anything like that,” Beck said. “I would say probably the most frustrating thing is some of the large structures and third-party providers, we always end up having to pull stuff in-house because we get let down by a number of providers. That’s caused a bit of delay.” 

New Flatellite Constellation Offering 

Rocket Lab introduced the new Flatellite satellite offering, designed for large constellations and high-volumen manufacturing. True to its name, it has a stackable structure to maximize the number of satellites that can be deployed per launch. It is designed to launch on Neutron. 

The platform is designed to enable low-latency, high-speed connectivity and remote sensing capability for national security, defense, and commercial markets.

Beck told investors the design was developed in consultation with constellation operators, and Rocket Lab aims to be able to manufacture Flatellite at a rate of a couple of satellites per week, up to a satellite a day. 

“With Flatellite we can do something few spacecraft manufacturers can. We can build it fast, cost effectively and in high volumes, thanks to our experience in spacecraft production combined with deep vertical integration of our in-house components. This puts us in greater control of cost and schedule than others relying on constrained supply chains,” Beck said. 

Flatellite is also a move toward Rocket Lab potentially operating its own constellation, which the company has been hinting at for a while now. 

Beck didn’t give any hints as to what type of application Rocket Lab would be looking at for its own constellation, but said its a “bold strategic move towards completing the final step of Rocket Lab’s ultimate vision of truly becoming an end-to-end space company and operating its own constellation and delivering services from space.” 

2024 Results 

Rocket Lab revenue in 2024 was $436 million, up 78% year-over-year. Quarter-on-quarter, Rocket Lab saw a 26% increase in revenue between the third quarter and the fourth quarter. 

Space Systems drove growth, with an 80% year-over-year increase in revenue to $311 million. Growth in Space Systems was driven by the MDA and Space Development Agency (SDA) satellite manufacturing contracts and the company’s component businesses. 

Launch Systems grew 74% year-over-year to $125 million in revenue. Rocket Lab executed a record 16 Electron launches in 2024, including hypersonic HASTE missions. In 2023, Rocket Lab launched 10 Electron missions. 

For the full year, GAAP gross margin was 26.6% and non-GAAP gross margin was 32%. CFO Adam Spice said the company expects continued margin expansion in 2025 in both business segments as Electron increases cadence and the Space Systems business continues to scale. 

The new launch contract with iQPS for eight missions is in addition to a four-launch deal with iQPS last year. 

Rocket Lab’s backlog at the end of 2024 was $1.067 billion, 64% of which was Space Systems and 36% was Launch. 

Backlog is nearly split between government and commercial customers, with 51% of the backlog for commercial. 

Rocket Lab provided guidance for the first quarter of revenue between $117 million to $123 million.

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