Rocket Lab Corporation · Q2 2026 call

We achieved a record $234 million in Q2 revenue, up almost $90 million or 62% versus the same quarter last year. That is a $34 million increase over last quarter's record revenue. For Launch Services, demand is extreme.

The third and final vertical is space applications, the entire reason for going to space in the first place. This is part of the space economy that provides data services to millions of people on Earth and delivers strong recurring revenue. With Iridium, Rocket Lab will have all three of these verticals.

It will take a decade or more to build out a constellation from scratch. With Iridium, we are starting with a constellation of 66 satellites relied upon by more than 2.5 million subscribers and delivering more than $870 million in annual revenue this past year.

While the window for an end-of-year launch is narrowing, the work we're doing now is about risk trading, balancing the timing of our first launch against how quickly and seamlessly we can scale our 10th launch.

Our Space Systems segment delivered $189.5 million in the quarter, reflecting a sequential increase of 38.6%. […] Meanwhile, our Launch Services segment generated revenue of $44.6 million this quarter, representing a 30% decrease compared to the previous quarter, despite completing a similar number of launches.

we expect approximately 45.5% of our current backlog to convert into revenue within the next 12 months.

As we progress towards Neutron's first flight, we expect capital expenditures to remain elevated as we invest in testing, production scaling, and infrastructure expansion.

The sequential increase in liquidity was driven by proceeds from sales of our common stock under our at-the-market equity offering program, which generated $1.08 billion during the quarter before it was subsequently terminated. These funds are intended to support acquisitions such as the recently announced Iridium acquisition, as well as other targets in a robust M&A pipeline

obviously the first flight is extremely important, but what about flight 10? Because that is probably, apart from first flight, the second most important thing, and how quickly we can scale into cadence is absolutely critical.

We brought Neutron to market with a $50 million - $55 million ASP with a commitment really not to do any significant discounting for early launches. We've stuck to that. […] I think right now the view is that we see more upside to ASPs than certainly anything that are down or sideways.

it is the wrong kind of spectrum for a broadband. The L-band spectrum has very unique advantages to it than some of the more broadband spectrum. I have learned to never say never. I think the two most wealthiest people in the world are going after that, and that is quite a challenge to go and compete.

A significant amount of the spend or cash flow consumption in the quarter was driven by building out these subsequent tails for Neutron. […] I would say also in the Mynaric acquisition, I mentioned earlier it had some supply chain challenges and so forth. We basically had to replenish that supply chain, and that was part of the step-up in the quarter as well.

I have personally never seen launch so constrained pretty much ever. Other launch providers are backing off and focusing on their own needs as well. The amount of launch that is left in the industry is really tight.

We have been pretty consistent in pointing towards, that will be the real turning point where we go to adjusted EBITDA positivity in the quarter after that event happens. But then we have also been pretty clear that it is going to probably be 18 - 24 months after that pivot that we get to cash flow positivity, because we will have to continue to invest in a fleet of tails to build out for Neutron.

We have some component solutions, such as solar, that are always going to be more towards the lower end. Call that in the kind of the 30s. And then if you look towards some of the product areas, they can be more kind of north of 70 points of gross margin. […] the biggest pieces of our backlog today are for SDA Tranche 2 and Tranche 3. Again, those are more in kind of in the mid-30s

even as new capacity comes on market from some competitors, a lot of that capacity is already spoken for their own internal programs. Whether it be internets or AI data centers or whatever. […] I see this constrained launch market persisting for quite some time.

I would encourage everybody to think of Iridium as not the endpoint from an applications play. I think it's really the starting point. We don't want to be known as the L-band tricky communications company. Our intentions are much more grander than that.