Rocket Lab Corporation

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Rocket Lab Corporation Q1 earnings call. At this time all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session you will need to press star 1 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one, one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Muriel Baker. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Hello and welcome to today's conference call to discuss Rocket Lab's first quarter 2026 financial results, business highlights and other updates. 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 a 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. Thank you.

Thanks Muriel. Before we dig into the quarter, I want to walk you through what sets Rocket Lab apart as one of the only true end-to-end space companies on the planet. Ultimately, it's our technologies, our capabilities, and our proven execution for the world's most demanding customers. First, our technology. For launch, we have Electron, the world's leading small launcher alongside Haste, which is delivering critical hypersonic test launch capabilities to the Department of War, and Neutron, a medium-lift rocket tailored to the Constellation deployment and national security missions. But launch was just the start. In 2020, we launched Photon, our first in-house developed spacecraft. That moment marked the beginning of our evolution from a pure-play launch provider to an end-to-end space company. In just six short years, we expanded our technology stack to include a full family of highly capable spacecraft available at constellation scale. And critically, we also manufacture the subsystems and payloads that go into these spacecraft. This vertical integration means we control quality, schedule and cost in ways that our competitors simply can't. These technologies have given us a huge suite of capabilities. We provide tactically responsive space launch and dedicated small satellite launch with unmatched flight heritage. suborbital hypersonic and missile defence testing from our defence customers, and national security launch on both neutron and electron. Our rockets also deploy and replenish constellations, launch lunar and planetary missions, and more. On space systems, our satellite and subsystems enable communication and connectivity infrastructure, missile warning and tracking, space reconnaissance and surveillance, space protection and space control, astrophysics and earth science missions, in-space manufacturing, and more. Execution is what matters most. Anyone can promise capabilities, but Rocket Lab is actually delivering right now for demanding and complex programs. We're enabling SDA's proliferated warfighter space infrastructure, delivering complete satellites with payloads on aggressive timelines. We're supporting the DOW's Mark TB hypersonic program and the Golden Dome space-based interceptor program. We're onboarded as a national security space launch provider, and we're executing missions for the NRO, Space Force, Missile Defence Agency, DIU, and DARPA. We are a trusted partner for the US and international space agencies, including NASA, JAXA, and ESA. Rocket Lab hardware is flying on Artemis missions. Our technology is on Mars rovers and orbiters. We support ISS resupply and other flagship NASA missions. Commercially we're supporting direct-to-device constellations, Earth observation constellations, lunar landers, orbiters and re-entry missions. This is execution, real missions on orbit now or in production and generating revenue. When the world's most sophisticated space organizations need mission success, they choose Rocket Lab. We built this technology and capability to serve our customers, but we also built something more, the ability to deploy and operate our own space-based applications and services. We're one of the only companies on the planet with this capability. This is the next significant opportunity that lays ahead for us. So with everyone up to speed, let's take a closer look how we executed against this strategy in Q1. This quarter has been phenomenal, the strongest Q1 in Rocket Lab's history. We've blown through the ceilings across all of the most important metrics. Record revenue, record gap gross margins, record backlog, record cash position, and record launch contracts across Electron, Haste, and Neutron. With revenue, we topped $200 million in the quarter for the first time, up more than 63% versus this time last year, and our forecast has revenue coming in even higher for Q2. Our gross margins are excellent, sitting strong at 38.2% gap and 43% non-gap. Our backlog jumped to more than $2 billion in contracted revenue across our national security, civil space and commercial programs, 20% over the quarter and 108% year-on-year, again the highest it's ever been. That's partly thanks to the record number of contracts we signed in Q1. In fact, with the 31 Electron and HACE launches and five Neutron contracts combined, we've booked more launches in the first three months of 2026 than we did for all of last year. Overall, we exited the quarter with $1.48 billion in cash and cash equivalents, and currently have secured access to more than $2 billion in total liquidity, giving us financial flexibility and positioning for growth and further M&A. There are more highlights across launch and space systems than we could fit into one slide, so let's go over them in more detail. Starting off a small launch across Electron and HAST. What a truly exceptional quarter it's been for Electron and Haste. We booked 31 missions, which is the most we've ever signed in a quarter. Demand for Electron has always been strong, but we're seeing an inflection now across both orbital and suborbital launch. Our customers know when they book on Electron and Haste, they're buying certainty and responsiveness they need to launch where and when they need to go. We've got more than 70 launches in backlog now, which is a new record. With eight missions off the pad already this year, we're on track to beat last year's launch record too. As well as we'll hit our 100th launch later this year. The fastest anyone in the industry will have ever done that. It's another record on the books for haste with our 190 million 20 launch order through Kratos and the Department of War and Mark TB. This is the largest single order we've seen within the program and a very clear vote of confidence from the Pentagon in HAST's ability to deliver the hypersonic test and missile defence capabilities that the nation needs. HAST now makes up almost one-third of all of our launch backlog today. What's particularly significant about HAST is that along with being the category leader for hypersonic test missions, HAST's strength has helped us to position us in the centre of America's defence architecture for the next big wave of spending. We're already ingrained with spacecraft components and full satellite builds, and when you add HAST hypersonic rockets to test missile tracking and defence, that's almost the entire spectrum of capabilities covered by Golden Dome. The new era of space primes has begun, injecting pace and innovation into national security and defence. Two companies at the forefront of this are Rocket Lab and Andril, and we're excited to confirm that we're teaming up. Andril has booked three dedicated HAST launches to support missions that combine their rapid prototyping with our industry-leading flight cadence, to accelerate tech development for the DOW within months, not years. The first of these launches are scheduled no earlier than November this year. That's commercial speed and tactical responsiveness in action. While we can't talk programme or mission specifics, the main takeaway from this partnership is that it brings together two of the defence industry's most innovative prime contractors to advance defence capabilities for the nation. So like I said, it's been a fantastic quarter for launch, but there's plenty to talk about for space systems as well. I'm thrilled to confirm that Rocket Lab has been selected to enable one of the nation's top national security priorities, the Space Base Interceptor Program under Golden Dome. Rocket Lab and Raytheon have been selected to demonstrate advanced capabilities for the Space Base Interceptor Program. This program is an important step in strengthening national missile defense capabilities, and we're proud to be contributing proven expertise to advance the development of solutions for this urgent security need. By now everyone knows we always have a strategic acquisition opportunity up our sleeve, and I'm excited to share the next one. We've entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Motive Space Systems, a Californian-based leader in space robotics, motion control systems, and spacecraft mechanisms. Their technology is featured on the Cadre Lunar Rover and NASA's Mars Perseverance Rover. That includes the rover's entire robotic arm, which was the most capable ever deployed on Mars in terms of load capacity, precision and sensing. MOTIV also built the zoom and focus and filter wheels for the primary imager for the mission. Most pictures you'll see from Mars come through that camera, and MOTIV's zoom mechanism were the first ever deployed in a planetary surface mission. This acquisition positions us to play a critical role in future lunar and planetary exploration missions, such as future commercial Mars sample return missions, as well as expand into significant national security programs. It will also bring the design and manufacturing of critical spacecraft mechanisms, like solar array drive assemblies, antenna and propulsion gimbals, filter wheels, focus mechanisms, and precision to drive electronics in-house, completing a key element of our satellite manufacturing at scale strategy. We unveiled our new electric propulsion thruster for satellites called GALS at Space Symposium last month, with a 200-unit production line already established and units delivered to ourselves for some of our own constellation programs. We've been inundated with inquiries from programs in need of hundreds of units each, and we're ready to break the bottleneck on electric propulsion. Rocket Lab is recognized as a world leader in propulsion, so an organic electric propulsion solution is a natural progression for us. And we're excited to bring manufacturing, scale reliability and performance to electric propulsion for the first time in the industry. The pace at which we rolled out new products this year has been relentless. Whether it's been organic or inorganic, what unifies our acquisitions and our internal innovations is a powerful vision. Complete vertical integration across the entire satellite value chain. Everything you see on this page, optics, solar, laser terminals, electric propulsion and other components, is already being built to our own platforms or being supplied to others, so that's a good chunk of upcoming missions across civil, commercial and national security have a Rocket Lab logo on them somewhere, with supplier of choice across the industry and other prime contractors turned to us for mission-critical technology. This quarter we also closed our acquisition of Mnarek, but the real story here is more than just adding optical comm terminals to our national security capabilities. With Mnarek, we've established Rocket Lab's first European footprint to support the German and European space industry on a much larger scale. Our expansion couldn't have come at a better time. The European space and defence market has been accelerating its investments in sovereign space capabilities, up to $109 billion by 2030 by some estimates across the European Union, Germany and the United Kingdom. Rocket Lab Europe gives us boots on the ground to capture that demand. whether it's optical comms, spacecraft build, international constellations, responsive launch, or providing our sought-after subsystems in high volumes. The door is now open to programs, partnerships, and revenue streams that weren't accessible before, and Rocket Lab Europe is about positioning the company for what's the next phase of growth in one of the world's most strategic markets. Moving on to Neutron. I'm excited to announce a new multi-launch contract for Neutron that makes up the largest contract in Rocket Lab's history. Five dedicated Neutron flights plus three electrons between now and 2029 for a confidential customer. It was only a few weeks ago that we announced our $190 million 20-launch deal for Haste, which was the record at that time. Now we have exceeded that deal with an even larger one. It speaks volumes to the strong and growing demand for all of our launch capabilities, And this booking means Neutron's manifest is filling up fast right through the end of the decade. This market needs medium launch. The demand signal is clear. Equally clear from these continued bookings is that customers trust Rocket Lab and Neutron to deliver this medium launch capability. We've introduced and scaled new vehicles to reliable high cadence before. We're one of only two companies in history that has successfully done this with meaningful reliability. And we're doing the same with Neutron. I hope that by now you know that my stance is not discounting flights just to fill up a manifest, so I can confirm that pricing for these neutron and electron launchers are very much in family with our commercial rates. Now on to development updates across the program. The team has made tremendous strides on the Stage 1 tank. Design refinements have improved both the tank's strength margins and manufacturability and give us confidence in the structural performance. It's only been two months since our last Neutron update and already we have AFP-made components sitting on the production floor. That's the beauty of automated production with AFP, not just for Flight 1 but also for the fleet of vehicles that come thereafter. This will feed directly into the next round of testing and qualification for Stage 1's tank as we drive towards Neutron's debut. As it stands, current progress is keeping our aggressive schedule towards the first launch later this year. Stage separation tests are also underway using Stage 2, its interstage and fixed fairing test articles, to test a condition as close to flight for how Neutron's first and second stages will separate during launch. Stage 2 deployment is arguably Neutron's most novel capability. Unlike other rockets with stacked stages that separate, Neutron's second stage is hung inside the fairing before it's deployed along its interior rails and out the mouth of the Hungry Hippo fairing. This reusable architecture is one of Neutron's clever competitive advantages. It allows us to reuse fairings without having to deploy separate marine assets to capture them downrange or deal with refurbishment from splashing down them in the ocean. We've cleared separation events at full flight loads on the second stage article and interstage deployment system, which is great news. We're now testing the resilience of the off-nominal separation events. So if you see something broken on the test sand from here on, know that that's completely intentional. For the interstage, that's happening at Middle River right now as the team works on the structures qualification. It's up to the test stand and being subjected to its loads that we should expect during launch, re-entry and landing. Then it will head back inside the building to be fitted out with its full suite of flight avionics and fluid systems. After that it will be shipped off to Wallops to join the Hungry Hippo fairing for further assembly. Another part of Neutron's program that we don't talk about enough but which is a critical part of its development is the landing barge called Return on Investment. Now the photos do not do it justice because this thing is massive. It's practically a launch site of its own. We're talking huge amounts of power generation, 10 megawatts across its four station-keeping thrusters, enough to power thousands of homes. By the time it's completed, it'll be more than 11 million pounds, or 5,000 metric tons, so fitting out this landing platform is coming along nicely. Housing for the platform thrusters have been installed, as well as the main cabin and the aft edge of the barge. Its power generation systems and thrusters have arrived to the shipyard in Louisiana and are ready to go in next, and we're on track for sea trials to start later this year. It's one thing to say that you're going to be reusable, it's another to actually make the investments into the landing platforms that enable it. We're doing this now, well ahead of time, so that we can move swiftly into reusability with Neutron as early as flight two. And finally, to round out Neutron's development, here's a look at the other significant progress across the program. From the bottom of the vehicle to the top, we've got the Archimedes engines continuing to undergo extensive testing at Stennis in their flight configurations. This is for both stage 1 version of the engines and for the vacuum optimised Archimedes that will power stage 2. It's non-stop hot fires across both test stands as the team really stretches the performance of these engines while running them in the full range of gimbal angles. For the thrust structure, since completing qualification, the team has gotten stuck into fitting it out with all the flight set of avionics and fluid systems. That's taking place at our Middle River facility before it's sent out to the Launch Complex 3 for integrated systems testing on the pad. Stage 2 continues to progress with the integration of fluid systems and avionics. We also qualified its payload support structure, a separate interface on the top of the stage that physically attaches the satellite to neutrons. This payload support structure is another carbon composite structure that's designed to be as lightweight as possible since every kilogram reduces payload capacity. And having cleared qualifications smoothly, it's just days away from shipping out to Launch Complex 3 as well. Then right at the top of the Hungry Hippo, our qualified reusable fairing system has been covered in TPS, or thermal protection system, once arriving in Virginia. Integration of the avionics and fluid systems on this part of the vehicle continues as well. So as you can see, there's been lots of neutron activity lately. I'll remind you that these comprehensive test campaigns are all being run in parallel. All time to converge for the first launch at the end of this year. That means a lot more exciting updates to look forward to in the coming weeks and months before the vehicle comes together and goes onto the pad. That wraps up the operational highlights. Now over to Adam for the financial overview and outlook.