Rocket Lab: “We’re more than a rocket business”
September 28, 2026

By Chris Forrester



Even founder and CEO Sir Peter Beck, of New Zealand and Long Beach-based Rocket Lab, admits that his company’s name is no longer wholly accurate. “I probably shouldn’t have called it Rocket Lab,” he said. “I should have called it Space Lab. The rocket always steals the show because it’s this big roaring stick in the sky.”

Beck’s business launched its 97th mission successfully on September 26th (and also its 18th mission this year) with an Electron rocket from its Mahia, New Zealand, launch site.


But few doubt that Rocket Lab is still on the acquisition trail, with plenty of talk – although nothing confirmed – that new M&A deals are possible. CFO Adam Spice told delegates at the recent Payload off World event in Houston, Texas that the company has “not done shopping,” implying that Rocket Lab has something of a list of component suppliers that it might add to its in-house manifest.

Rocket Lab is also in the process of acquiring Iridium Communications in an $8 billion deal. On September 24th Iridium’s shareholders approved the purchase. Beck said: “We’re excited about what we can build together for customers, governments and millions of people around the world once the transaction closes.” The transaction is expected to be completed by mid-2027.

It is also clear that even when the Iridium deal closes its revenues will only be about one sixth of Rocket Lab’s overall income, according to Spice.

Beck admitted that his rockets business was just the means to a much greater end saying that launch was only the entry point. The higher value strategy is in spacecraft manufacturing, components, satellite buses, mission infrastructure and eventually the service delivered from orbit. If Rocket Lab only sells the ride, it gets paid once. If it owns the stack, it will profit way more.

Beck explained that the rocketry side of the business was worth about $10-$20 billion. He said that it was the subsequent applications where the real money lay. Space Systems earns money building what goes inside it. But applications are where the customer is actually paying for an outcome. Your connectivity, imagery, navigation, defence data or communications. That revenue can repeat every month or every year instead of ending when the rocket leaves the pad. So, Rocket Lab is trying to move from transactional launch revenue toward recurring infrastructure revenue.

Beck was candid, saying that Iridium’s $3 billion constellation of satellites could have been supplied by Rocket Lab for $350 million, and only taken 18 months to suppl, noting:. “When cost is an order of magnitude less, you can take some risk” which makes Iridium deal more interesting if Rocket Lab can rebuild network far cheaper.”

He compared a satellite to a terrestrial cellular tower. Once the cell tower was built then thousands of people continuously used the network. A satellite constellation would work the same way. Except the satellites were invisible. Once the satellites are operating, customers can keep paying for bandwidth, data or access without Rocket Lab having to manufacture another rocket for every dollar of revenue. “Space is kinda weird that it’s hidden infrastructure. You don’t drive past it every day, so you don’t see it. But everybody interfaces with space every single day, whether you realise it or not,” explained Beck.

He said the Iridium purchase would convert the company into a services company, working from space, commenting: “We build rockets. We build satellites, and now with Iridium we are also a services comp any from space.”

His explanation stressed that there were now three different pools of revenues: Launches, Spacecraft and recurring services. If you control launch, spacecraft and services, you can design those pieces together instead of negotiating with three separate companies every time you want to expand a constellation. This will reduce dependency, shorten deployment cycles and keep more of the margin inside the same company.

In acquiring Iridium Rocket Lab will inherit L-band global spectrum, plus 2.5 million recurring users to its satellite technology and a well-proven operational infrastructure.