Rocket laboratory It is best known for the Electron launch vehicle, but the company’s earnings results continue to show that it is much more than just a rocket company.
The company reported revenue of $68 million for the third quarter, with $46.3 million coming from its Space Systems division. (That represents a 17% increase in revenue over last year.) Rocket Lab also invoiced two major phases as part of a $143 million contract to deliver 17 spacecraft to customer MDA, with the first spacecraft expected to be delivered in the first quarter of next year.
Rocket Lab’s Space Systems business sells satellite components such as star trackers, reaction wheels, solar panels, the entire spacecraft and the Photon satellite bus used by customers including Varda Space and NASA.
On the launch vehicle side, Rocket Lab conducted two successful launches in the third quarter — back-to-back recovery missions returned the Electron booster to Earth via parachute, and one of those missions flew the previously launched Rutherford engine for the first time. CEO Peter Beck told investors on Wednesday that this engine “performed flawlessly.”
The company’s launch rhythm stopped during 41street Electron’s flight in mid-September, when a mid-flight anomaly occurred that resulted in a complete loss of the payload, a single synthetic aperture radar satellite from Capella Space.
Rocket Lab has received FAA approval to resume Electron launches, and the investigation into the root cause of the anomaly is in its final stages, the company said. The Electron is now expected to return to flight no later than November 28, in a launch window extending into December for a mission assigned to Japan-based iQPS.
The anomaly happened incredibly quickly. As Beck puts it, “The team only had 1.6 seconds of anomalous data to work with.” An internal investigation revealed that the likely root cause of the anomaly was an “electric arc” that shorted out the battery packs providing power to the Electron’s second stage, resulting in a loss of power to the vehicle. View quarterly earnings A release on Wednesday described this as a “unique and unusual interplay” of a number of circumstances that essentially created a perfect storm for the electrical problem to arise.
Looking ahead, the company has 22 cyber missions planned for next year, with 9 booked as recovery missions and two that will be hypersonic suborbital missions under Rocket Lab’s HASTE program.
Rocket Lab executives also provided a number of details related to the development of the medium-sized transport vehicle, Neutron. The company has completed second-stage tank testing and combustion testing of Archimedes, the massive rocket engine that will power the Neutron.
The company reported a net loss of $40.6 million. For the fourth quarter of this year, the company expects to achieve revenues between $65 million and $69 million. Rocket Lab expects revenue to increase to between $95 million to $105 million in the first quarter of 2024, due in part to five Electron launches currently in the pipeline.