The disconnect between Rocket Lab’s operational momentum and its share price has rarely been starker. While the company continues to stack up defense contracts and hit launch milestones, the stock sits at €57.00, down another 0.9 percent on Wednesday and roughly 12 percent lower over the past seven sessions.
A Week of Military Wins
The latest addition to the company’s national security portfolio came on Monday, when Rocket Lab secured a Viasat order for a geostationary satellite bus designed to carry a protected military communications system. The deal reinforces the company’s standing as a contractor for sensitive government programs, a segment that has seen repeated expansion in recent weeks.
That momentum had already been building. Earlier this month, the US Space Force awarded Rocket Lab two delivery orders totaling $12 million under the Space Data Network Consortium, aimed at demonstrating secure optical communication links. The company was also selected to participate in the NITE-STAR program, a Space Force training and wargaming infrastructure initiative with a combined program ceiling of up to $981 million across all participants.
The Space Force nod places Rocket Lab alongside Amazon LEO for Government, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and York Space Systems in building out the multi-vendor Space Data Network — a signal that the company’s defense credentials are gaining traction in Washington.
Insider Filings and the Neutron Question
The same day the Viasat deal was announced, Rocket Lab filed a Form 144 notice with the SEC indicating an intended sale of shares by insiders. The transaction falls under a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan established in March, set up in advance for diversification and estate planning purposes. Such automated plans are not subject to day-to-day insider discretion and are generally not viewed by the market as an independent red flag.
Investor attention, however, remains fixed on the larger Neutron rocket, whose integration and testing phase has slipped. The first flight was postponed roughly two weeks ago, and the stock has shed 18.1 percent since that announcement. Development work continues on multiple fronts — the reusable fairing, nicknamed “Hungry Hippo,” is undergoing flight-like opening and closing tests before integration with the vehicle’s interstage — but no revised launch date has been confirmed.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Rocket Lab?
Launch Cadence and Platform Business Hold Up
Operationally, the core Electron program keeps delivering. The 93rd Electron mission, dubbed “The Lightning God Defends,” lifted off from Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand on August 20, carrying a radar-equipped satellite for the Institute for Q-shu Pioneers of Space. It marked the ninth iQPS satellite Rocket Lab has deployed and the company’s 14th mission this year, maintaining a perfect success rate.
The satellite platform business is also showing results. Eight spacecraft built by Rocket Lab for MDA Space have successfully reached orbit, supporting Globalstar’s direct-to-device communication services. They are part of a broader order covering 17 platforms with a total value of $143 million — evidence that the company’s role as an infrastructure supplier is expanding alongside its launch operations.
Rocket Lab has also unveiled GHOST, a portable launch architecture designed to provide “anytime, anywhere” launch capability for Electron and HASTE, aimed squarely at multi-launch campaigns and national security missions.
Record Backlog Meets Sector-Wide Rotation
The fundamentals remain solid on paper. Rocket Lab posted record second-quarter revenue of $234.06 million, up 62 percent year over year, with a backlog of $2.36 billion. Those figures continue to anchor the bull case for the stock.
Yet the share price faces headwinds that extend beyond company-specific concerns. Analysts attribute the persistent weakness to capital rotation within the space sector, triggered by SpaceX’s initial public offering over a month ago. Since that listing, Rocket Lab shares have accumulated losses of 45.8 percent. The pending acquisition of Iridium Communications — for which the HSR waiting period expired in August, with an S-4 registration filed at the SEC — remains a central strategic pillar, though it also adds leverage to the balance sheet, a point that skeptical voices in the market flag as a risk.
For now, investors are left weighing a growing defense pipeline and robust order book against sector-wide valuation doubts and the unresolved Neutron timeline. The operational story keeps improving; the chart tells a more cautious tale.
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