Rocket Lab Corporation

Good day and welcome to the Rocket Lab Corporation Q2 earnings call. Today, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance during today's call, please signal for a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note that today's event is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Muriel Baker, Senior Communications Manager. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Hello and welcome to today's conference call to discuss Rocket Lab's second quarter 2025 financial results. Before we begin the call, I'd like to remind you that our remarks may contain forward-looking statements that relate to the future performance of the company. And these statements are intended to qualify for the safe harbor protection from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and factors that could influence our results are highlighted in today's press release. And others are contained in our filings with the Security and Exchange Commission. Such statements are based upon information available to the company as of the date hereof and are subject to change for future developments. except as required by law, the company does not undertake any obligation to update these statements. Our remarks and press release today also contain non-GAAP financial measures within the meaning of Regulation G enacted by the SEC. Included in such release and our supplemental materials are reconciliations of these historical non-GAAP financial measures to the comparable financial measures calculated in accordance with GAAP. This call is also being webcast with a supporting presentation, and a replay and copy of the presentation will be available on our website. Our speakers today are Rocket Lab founder and Chief Executive Officer Sir Peter Beck, as well as Chief Financial Officer Adam Spice. They will be discussing key business highlights, including updates on our launch and space systems programs, and we will discuss financial highlights and outlook before we finish by taking questions. So with that, let me turn the call over to Sir Peter.

Thanks, Muriel, and thanks for everybody joining us today. Look, we've delivered impressive financial results this quarter with another record revenue of $144.5 million, above the high end of our prior guidance and up 36% compared to last year. A gap gross margin expansion exceeded expectations this quarter too, and the consecutive growth of the company is really exciting to drive. No surprises here that Electron continues to be the leader of the small launch industry. We had five launches across the quarter, two of them back-to-back from Launch Complex 1 in two days. Demand for its services is also increasing from different countries with multiple international space agencies signed up for Electron launches this year and next. We made rapid progress towards the pad with Neutron this quarter. Launch Complex 3 is ready for its grand opening and we've got the first rocket parts on their way to Virginia. More to share across the program in the up-and-coming slides here. And finally, in space systems, our prime contractor status is expanding with our imminent acquisition of GEOST. Being able to quickly build and deploy entire satellite systems is the cornerstone of the future U.S. defense strategy, and we're in a prime position to play within those large opportunities within launch, spacecraft, and now payloads added to our end-to-end capabilities. So let's get into those details now. We're very close to finalizing acquisition of GEOST, maker of missile tracking satellites for national security missions. Having cleared through the antitrust review, we're on track for signatures on paper here pretty shortly. I'll let Adam take you through the financial details later, but if there's one thing to take away from this deal, it's adding payloads on top of launch and spacecraft really cements our status as a one-stop shop for national security. We're already a trusted disruptor in the launch and prime contractor for Constellation Builds, and this acquisition adds to our competitive advantage. It will bring an extensive inventory of space-based missile warning sensors and manufacturing facilities in Arizona and northern Virginia that secure the domestic supply chain of this critical technology for next-generation missile defense initiatives, like the Golden Dome and SDA Constellations. The $175 billion Golden Dome program could prove to be one of DoD's largest procurements to date, and we're in a great position to capitalize on opportunities here. Our strategic investment and the way that we've scaled the company to uniquely meet its needs positions us strongly to win either as a prime contractor or even as a sub or even as a component supplier. Our pursuit of the Golden Dome extends just beyond payloads. Across its entire ecosystem, we have the technology and capability ready to serve. We operate the world's most reliable and responsive small launch vehicle, Electron, operating at the fastest cadence of any small launch vehicle in history, having just completed its 69th launch. With our hypersonic testing variant, HAST, we are revolutionizing the way missile defense technology is tested in a hypersonic environment. A new reusable rocket, Neutron, perfectly answers the call for a diversified launch for national security and can deploy entire constellations of spacecraft at once to build out the dome's proliferated architecture. We've already won more than half a billion dollar contract with the SDA to build and operate a significant piece of their PWSA network, so there's a golden opportunity to build upon that here with our existing capability. And look, the list goes on, but I won't belabor the point. Our advantage is our commercial speed and proven execution. The way programs like this have been built in the past, dominated by the large defense primes, just won't work this time around to meet the administration's urgent timelines. It needs agility and innovation, vertical integration and on-time delivery and execution. That's what we've delivered time and time again across our programs to date and what we stand ready to deliver for the Golden Dome. There's no better mission on the books that demonstrates the full depth of our capabilities than the Victus-Hays mission for the Space Force. Across its tactical response to space program, we're the only provider delivering a complete end-to-end launch plus spacecraft solutions. We bring the full stack of offerings across the satellite design, component manufacturing, integration and testing, flight software, ground, mission, and launch licensing, and the launch itself, and on-orbit operations. We own the entire mission lifecycle and its capability for national security that very, very few others can provide. It's also a great demonstration of how commercial capability like ours can be leveraged to bring the concept of responsive space into operational reality. exactly what the US administration is seeking with Golden Dome. This mission has a 24-hour call-up requirement, which quite frankly is business as usual for Rocket Lab these days, and we recently cleared the program milestone for Victus Haze that moves us into the final integration and testing phase of our spacecraft for the mission and launch on Electron later, is on track later this year. Another program with a major milestone tick is our transport layer constellation build for the SDA. The program has signed off our satellite design and approach for manufacturing, which means we can now move into full-scale production of these 18 spacecraft and recognize further revenue from this $515 million program. As this constellation gets underway, we're also preparing for a much larger opportunity within the SDA and its next tranche of satellite contracts. This is where our strategy of bringing key satellite technologies in-house makes us an attractive commercial partner. Our incoming sensor payloads, for example, are also in play for an SDA award and through other bidders. We can control the cost and reduce the schedule risk through our vertical integration in a way that others can't. And we hold the keys to that technology and components that are foundational to these contracts. And finally, for space systems, another strategic area of focus for this past quarter has been in supporting the administration's plans for Mars exploration. It was great to see our $700 million provided for a Mars telecommunications orbiter in a Senate's recent budget. The path to Mars for human spaceflight must begin with the ability to communicate there. And this is something that we've always strongly pushed for. In fact, we were the only company that proposed an independently launched Mars telecom orbiter as part of the end-to-end Mars sample return mission. So our ambition is clearly in line with the administration's vision for Mars. Much of our technology is already across major Mars missions like NASA InSight Lander, the Ingenuity Helicopter, the Cruise Stage that brought Perseverance to Mars, and of course our Escapade spacecraft that are ready for launch here soon. We have got the experience in delivering mission success for Mars exploration, and our vertically integrated approach reduces complexity, controls cost, and provides schedule certainty, all under a firm fixed price. Now on to electrons. Once again, another busy quarter for Electron as demand and launch cadence continues to soar. The beauty of Electron is being able to choose when and where you want to fly. Sometimes for us that can mean flying in very close succession, like the four launches in four weeks that we saw in June, and two of those flew just days apart, a record turnaround for us at Launch Complex 1. We've since racked up launch number 69, and number 70 is scheduled for liftoff next week, keeping us on track for 20 or more launches by this year's end. These missions are a great showcase of how quickly we can turn around launches as they manifest demands, with the infrastructure, production, and capability to place and support a launch a week as the demand for small dedicated launch continues to expand. Beyond Electron's proven heritage as America's most frequently launched small rocket, international space agencies are coming to rely on it for access to orbit as well. We signed our first direct launch contract with the European Space Agency this quarter to launch a pair of satellites for the continent's future navigation constellation before the end of this year. The mission urgency stems from ESA's need to meet spectrum requirements by early 26. But with few domestic rides to space available for them, Electron is stepping up to the task of responsive launch. It's a similar situation faced by another sovereign space agency that came calling for Electron 2. I can't quite reveal the full details of those missions yet, but it's fuel on the fire to Electron's international expansion and leadership in the small lift market globally. Now to cap off the list of Space Agency launch contracts, we secured another NASA mission on Electron for launch early 2026. Time and time again, we've proven Electron to be the premier small launcher for NASA science missions, and we're looking forward to delivering the same precise orbital deployments that they've come to expect. Now on to our neutron update for the quarter. Let's start with a top-down view of where things stand today. We're building more than just our first rocket. We're laying the foundation for long-term sustainable programs. We know from experience that building the first one is hard, but building the system that gets you to launch number 10 and 20 and beyond is much harder. Most of the capital of any rocket program goes into building out the infrastructure, and we believe we've got all the critical elements in place now. Our launch and test sites are substantially complete, recovery infrastructure is on track, the Archimedes engine manufacturing line is now capable of knocking out an engine every 11 days, and we believe that we've scaled our operations to be ready to support, to move into multiple flights a year after the first launch gets off the ground. On the launch vehicle side, the teams are working literally day and night to get Neutron to the pad. We're in a good spot with Lots of core elements like the Hungry Hippo fairing, major structures, second stage, engine qualification, etc. It's a green tick for Stage 2 flight hardware and its qualification program. The brains of the rocket, like the flight computer and GNC, are ready for flight. So lots of green across the vehicle, as you'd expect. There's been lots of action on the regulatory approvals front as well. We've been granted our FCC license for Neutron's first launch, and the FAA has accepted our launch license application that puts us on track for a launch license to fly from Launch Complex 3 by the end of the year. We've also had the critical agreements in place to transport flight hardware to the launch site on Wallops Island. You've likely seen a bit of activity on that front around expanding our operations and dredging in the channel. But these improvements are related to increasing operational flexibility as launch cadence ramps up. It's not a gate to Neutron's debut. Importantly, the schedule is not sequential. Everything is happening in parallel, and a lot of the progress markers that are underway or still pending are probably going to stay that way up until just before we launch. There are still some risks to retire, like propulsion and full integration of stage one testing, which we're taking our time on to make sure we're successful, and when the rocket is on the launch pad. But over the next few slides, I'll take you through the latest engineering updates and lay out the current expectations for the next few months ahead. First up, an exciting moment on the path to launch. Neutron's flight hardware is on its way to the launch site. Over the past couple of months, we've put the second stage through many, many tests to validate its readiness for launch. Having completed its critical testing phase, it's headed to the Launch Complex 3 for final integration in preparation for stage testing at Wallops Island. The large structures that make up the first stage, like propellant tanks and thrust structures, are expected to be on the test stands before they're shipped out to the launch site shortly. Once they've completed a major structural test, they'll progress into final integration and stage testing. As we move out of R&D into production for the next rockets in our fleet, our factories are all humming. We've automated the production of the largest composite rocket structures in history with our 90 tonne AFP machine that we installed there last year. We're pulling flight parts off the machine now for the stage one barrels and propellant domes and allows us to scale efficiently. And we've made long lead commitments for manufacturing equipment that puts us in a good place to build three vehicles next year. For Archimedes, engine testing is accelerating, and this is the most crucial and time-consuming aspect of any rocket development program, and always the longest pole in the tent. We're running the engine to full mission duration, and the operational test cadence is hitting up to three or four hot fires a day now, seven days a week. as we work diligently through all the engine qualification program. In between hot fires, the team's making improvements and iterating on the design quickly, and then getting right back into the next engine test firing on the stand. We expect these tweaks all the way up to Neutron's debut launch and beyond. For those who are interested, take a look at the latest mission duration hot fire video we just shared. Moving on to Launch Complex 3, I'm pleased to say that we have an official date for the site opening later this month, The team in Virginia is well and truly into launch pad activation while we close out the final construction activities. The water deluge system was activated last quarter, and now the team is meticulously making their way through system by system to prepare for static fire operations on the launch mount once the flight hardware arrives. Launch Complex 3 is set to be a hugely important national asset. There's a spaceport bottleneck at the other federal sites right now, and that shows how important launch site diversity really is. National security must take priority, and with Neutron onboarded to the NSSL program earlier this year, a rocket will be the first to fly for NSSL out of Virginia when we pick up missions under that contract. We'll be cutting the ribbon for Launch Complex 3 on August the 28th. We're also opening up a limited number of spaces for retail shareholders to join us on Wallops Island, so I encourage anybody who is interested to check out the details on our website. All in all, we continue to push extremely hard for an end-of-year launch. We're continuing to run a green light schedule with Neutron, which means every single thing needs to go to plan for the schedule to hold. But I also want to stress that we're not going to rush and take stupid risks to get a launch Neutron before it's ready. In the context of the life cycle of the vehicle and the program, a couple of months here or there is completely irrelevant. What's really important is performance, reliability, scalability right from the get-go. and there'll be no cutting corners here to just rush to the pad for an arbitrary deadline. I think everybody has heard me say it before. In fact, I'm a little bit infamous for it now. I'm not built to build shit. So with that, I'll hand it off to Adam, and he can run through the financial highlights for the quarter.