Hello everyone. Today I'm very excited to bring you an interview me and several other Rocket Lab investors had with Rocket Lab CEO Sir Peter Beck as well as CFO Adam Spice yesterday after their earnings call, which was by the way a phenomenal result and the stock is responding very well today. This video is brought to you by the channel members you see at the start of every single video. So, thank you very much to the members and if you're interested in joining them, there is a join link in the description down below as well. There's links down there to the other YouTube channels if you're interested in checking out them. I think they're all worth a follow. And now, let's go ahead and dive into the interview with Sir Peter Beck. Very cool. Sir Peter Beck, Adam Spice, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate you taking the time and continuing to engage with our retail community and sharing your knowledge and insight. So, thank you so much for joining us today.
Pretty big milestone getting over $200 million in revenue in a quarter. You know, this actually May is my 8th anniversary of joining Rocket Lab, which was happy revenue. To go from zero to a couple hundred million dollar quarter is pretty epic.
Yeah, it's good. Yeah. A lot of things have changed. Some things still remain the same. You know, when I joined, remember the original office building in New Zealand here where Pete had everybody shoehorned into a really really small space where literally like seating was like on an airplane where literally if somebody had to get up and go to the bathroom, everybody had to get out of the aisle and let that person go to the bathroom and then same thing when they came back. So, we still keep things very tight when it comes to facilities utilization and stuff, but some things never change.
I hate real estate. I hate the expense of real estate. So, we maximize all of that.
Nice. Difficult to believe as frugal as you come off.
I think it would be a hard call to work out who's tighter between Adam and I.
No, it must be pretty rare for the CEO to be more frugal than the CFO.
I'll take it. Makes my job a lot easier.
That's awesome. Cool. Well, if you don't mind, we'll kind of lead into some questions. I figured we kind of break things somewhat structurally between launch. So, we'll kind of kick things off with Electron, go into Neutron, and then go into some space systems, and then maybe ask you guys some interesting questions at the end. So, I wanted to kind of start with a bit of a rumor. We always like to put on a bit of a tin foil hat on Rocket Lab Weekly. So, several months ago, we heard a rumor floating around about an Electron launch being signed that was hosting a 500 kg payload. Now, we obviously didn't put much weight into this rumor for obvious reasons, but then recently it was on the Doc Twitz podcast there was a mention of Haste being able to lift up to 1.5 tons, which is in contrast to the 700 kg capacity hosted on the website. So, I assume that the discrepancy between the 700 kg versus the 1.5 tons is a bit of a mix of payload size, speed, fuel requirements, and whatnot. But Peter, is there anything you can speak to in terms of this rumored 500 kilogram Electron lift? Is it that April Fool's Electron heavy for me a few years back?
No, no, no. I mean, the standard lift for a orbital electron is around about that 320 kgs. So that's right. Haste, yep, haste can do 500 kgs, no problems at all. And the 1.5 ton haste, that's like the theoretical structural limit of the vehicle. So some of those heavy missions we actually put carbon straps on the interstage and some of those areas, just some of the unpressurized areas, just to allow for that extra kind of bending moments and loads. But the 1.5 ton is the theoretical structural limit of the vehicle. 700 kgs is like we don't have to do anything to the vehicle. It's just a standard electron. But also once you get over one and a half tons, then the hypersonic performance starts to really drop off as well. So yeah, no, there's no kind of conspiracy theory here. They're just numbers depending on different outcomes.
That's fair. And it sounds like Haste is going to have quite the year judging by what was mentioned on the call.
Yeah. Haste is a really solid product for us. You guys sold 31 Electron contracts in the last quarter, which is amazing. I hope I have my numbers right. It's 4:00 a.m. here. If we extrapolate that out, it's like 120 launches in a year. This was a little bit touched on the earnings call that you guys have a factory that was made for one electron a year and you said that it would be pretty nominal, pretty small investments to actually get up to that level. But if you guys see sustained demand for Electron, what would it take to come into like 70, 80, 90 launches per year, or do you ever see that happening?
Well, I mean, it just comes down to the market demand. As Adam mentioned on the call, the hypersonic capabilities and demand from the US is strong. There's a whole bunch of other countries that are looking to do the same thing and I think if we had to increase production, then the production process is really well defined and really mature. So it's just adding workstations and production lines, so it's not a huge lift at all.
Yeah, I mean most of the hypersonic missions, like all the hypersonic missions to date, have been launched out of the US. So it would require flexibility from some of those customers to be able to launch out of New Zealand or we'd have to create some launch capabilities elsewhere. Because right now we're licensed to launch I think it's a dozen times out of Wallops for Electron. I mean we're confident we could increase that to a higher rate but if you're talking about many dozens of launches it would take probably another pad just like we have multiple pads.
Yeah, you'd want two pads here. But the demand is certainly strong. I mean, as you mentioned, I think this year probably about five or so launches are going to be haste launches. The street right now has a forecast, the ranges are roughly between 25 and maybe 28 launches is kind of where the estimates are. And so we're looking at like 20% or so of those being haste, which has come a long way from zero just a few years ago, but it's always been something that we've been pretty excited about and it's now just coming into focus.
I have like a naming convention question and it kind of relates to Electron and all the products really in the Rocket Lab ecosystem. So, you named the small rocket Electron, the medium rocket Neutron, and the spacecraft Photon. What happened to Proton? Should we anticipate that a proton is still to come?
Well, the Russians took that already, so yeah. So, no, we can't. That would get super confusing if we started calling things protons. Yeah, but we love our subatomic particles and we'll keep naming stuff after them for sure. A little bit geeky like that.
I like it.
Pete, you have an innate ability to break down concepts into a rudimentary way so people can really comprehend and digest. How feasible are data centers in space? I do believe dealing with customers like StarCloud is closer to reality than people are really giving credit for. I know I personally was skeptical, you know, six months to a year ago when people were starting to bring this up. And so it'd be interesting to hear you with your experience and obviously the recent partnerships that you've been signing.
Yeah. So I think undoubtedly there will be some data centers in space because it makes a ton of sense for kind of sovereign and strategic reasons. I mean you just think about there's requirements for hardened data centers down here on Earth. And so one obvious solution to that is to put them in orbit. It's pretty hard to tamper with something when it's in orbit. So I think for a number of strategic and security reasons there will be data centers in orbit.
Now, I'm not sure if I'm ready to subscribe to the all compute is going to leave the planet and go into space because I think for that to happen, it's purely an economic judgment. And if you fix the current electricity price on Earth and the current efficiency of compute and then you float the constraint of launch cost and you assume that that changes by an order of magnitude or so, then you can kind of squint and say yes, data centers in orbit are the obvious solution, they're all going to go to orbit. But this is purely an economic decision and if you just tweak those knobs a little bit and say that okay, electricity prices on Earth decrease and efficiency of compute increase, then I think the economics of putting everything into orbit becomes far more challenging. But nevertheless, we've certainly got a dollar each way. So if it turns out that I'm wrong there and all compute goes to orbit, then we've got plenty of irons in the fire and great products to be able to support that.
That's good. And speaking of irons in the fire, seven new products that you guys were showing today in the call. And also, potentially Adam can answer on this piece. I know there's a lot of people out there talking about spectrum and I know you answered a question on the call today about spectrum. You guys are obviously focusing on laser terminals. Do you believe there's a recency bias for people wanting to continue in the spectrum world and spend so much in the spectrum world? And do you think people are really downplaying laser communications? And if you think so, what do you want those people to know?
Yeah. No, that's your question, Adam. Like I don't know. I think there certainly is, I'd say, it seems like a land race right now to get spectrum. I think people are assuming that things are going to continue to be done the way they have been done historically. You know, are there things that could be done in a very different way that kind of get around the constraints that spectrum ownership currently dictate? It's possible. I've heard rumor, you know, I spent 25 years in the semiconductor industry before coming over to Rocket Lab and so I still kind of keep my ear to the ground there and there's rumor that people are working on some pretty interesting things that could make unlicensed spectrum bands usable for things that now require spectrum. So yeah, I mean, never underestimate the progress that can be made by these clever folks in the semiconductor world in managing the RF signal chain in such a way where they could get amazing things to come out of it. So it's possible, it certainly is possible. I think that's a bit of a ways out there.
And you know, we've got some very smart people who are making spectrum buys at the moment. We're betting that the current way is going to continue. I mean, for us, we've always been very clear that ultimately we want to be in the constellation, we want to own our own constellation, operate and generate the recurring revenue from that. What we haven't said is what does that application look like because not all applications are the same when it comes to need for owning spectrum and so forth. Obviously there's applications in things like Earth observation that don't require spectrum ownership. There's likely even communications type of applications for government customers that wouldn't necessarily require you to own the spectrum. You could basically leverage spectrum that's already owned. So I think it's an open area, but certainly something that we spend a lot of time thinking about. Because clearly our whole end-to-end space strategy and mission is yet to be fulfilled. We're picking off the pieces as we go along. Launch being we think the most difficult one to master is one that we've gotten pretty far along on. With Neutron we'll think we'll have everything that we need.
And then on the space system side, you see us continually chipping away at all the really key fundamental technologies. And again, like we mentioned on the call today, not all of those have been solved by buying things. We develop things internally. So I think that degree of freedom because we have such a strong engineering culture allows us to really not be intimidated or get pushed down one path versus another. I think everything's on the table every time we make one of these decisions. And hopefully that continues to be the case.
Thinking of moon landers, especially with the mode of acquisition fresh in mind. NASA administrator Jared Isaacman recently mentioned that he wants landers hitting the moon's south pole on a monthly cadence starting at the beginning of 2027. With Rocket Lab's extensive know-how and now with Motive in your tool belt as well, paired with the proven flight software that took Firefly's Blue Ghost to the moon last year in 2025. How difficult would it be for Rocket Lab to pivot into moon landers? Like I'm sure it's not just a matter of slapping some legs on an Explorer bus or something like that, right? How much of a pivot would that be? Especially with Motive now in house.
I mean, at the risk of sounding arrogant, because landing on any other celestial body is not trivial, but I have high confidence that if we decided to do that, we would absolutely do that. We have to view it in the context of where is that taking us into what area. And I guess we've kind of shied away from these traditional programs because they tend to be somewhat unstable. They change around with different administrations and then you're going to the moon, then you're going to Mars, and then back to the moon, and so on and so forth. So we feel the better place for us to play right now is to provide all of this stuff to these guys and if it turns out to be an interesting market that has some longevity, then you can bet your ass we're in there. But right now I think we're probably better placed to support others. Yeah, I mean, I don't think that's how I see it.
Yeah, no, I don't think we've ever looked at that market as being a huge TAM. And it's all about growing ourselves into increasingly large TAMs. I mean, as you can see, kind of the trajectory of our revenue growth. To move the needle, we got to do increasingly large things. And that doesn't feel like the most obvious next large thing for us to do. Although as Pete said, from an engineering discipline perspective, I have no doubt that we could do it if we chose to go bite that off. But yeah, it doesn't seem like it's the next best thing for us.
That's a pretty Mars-shaped answer if you ask me.
Even for Mars, I think we're trying to be pretty selective, right? I mean, we're going to obviously we're making a play for the MTO opportunity, which could be meaningful and exciting and everything else. But I think, you know, I don't think you've ever seen if you, in the eight years I've been here at Rocket Lab, we've not had the obsession to just go to Mars to think about colonizing things and have these big grandiose ideas because everything here has got to be commercial. I mean, that's the one thing I think it's pretty unique about Rocket Lab is everything that we do is commercial. Yeah, Pete's got your Venus thing which is your one exception, even that you're funding yourself.
So as a corporation we still stay very very tight to how do we make money? How do we make more money and then more money after that?
Beautiful.
I have a follow-up question regarding, since we are on a topic of Mars a little bit. Is that okay Scott?
Oh Scott then, sure go ahead.
Take that as a yes. So my question is and it's touching a little bit on the newest acquisition and I hope you can lend a little bit of light into that. But looking at the three founders for Motive, you have a CEO who was the Mars Phoenix and Curiosity robotic arm work expert, you have a VP of ops who worked on the Mars Pathfinder, Cassini and I think every major Mars rover robotic arm program that there is. You had the VP of business dev who spent 11 years at JPL designing extreme environment motion control for rovers. So collectively they've touched essentially every major US Mars surface robotics program over the last 25 years. You layer that onto Rocket Lab's existing Mars portfolio. Your Mars, your Escapade twins, your components on InSight, Perseverance, Ingenuity, and your very vocal and active MTO or MTN bid. And it starts to look like a deliberate Mars consolidation play. Is the strategy to dominate US Mars heritage regardless of which specific NASA Mars contract you win? And does owning Motive change your Mars pitch?
That's a great question. Well, it definitely changes the Mars pitch a little bit because we've brought, as you point out, incremental experience and capability on board for sure. And I think going back to what Adam said previously, it's like we're very focused on the commercial opportunities and the MTO is a great example of what we believe to be a really commercial opportunity. I mean, if you think about anything that goes to Mars, whether it's humans or infrastructure or landers, needs comms. So it's not like we've chosen one really narrow unique specific niche to go down. It's like well no, everything that goes there needs comms and needs comms relays. So that's kind of the fundamental infrastructure for anything at Mars.
Now, I think everybody knows I've got a little bit of a soft spot for planetary sciences and we always have one cool mission in the clean room at any one time. And I think that's important for a number of reasons. I mean, they obviously have to be commercial, they have to be strategic, but also it's great for the team. Everybody wants to work on or be part of any Mars missions and things like that. It's great for recruiting. It's great for morale. So, having a NASA meatball on something that's going to Mars in the clean room, we just try to always have something like that. But to Adam's point before, it has to be commercial and strategic.
And I think you take that a little further. The one thing that I focus more on with this Motive deal is I don't really even think about Mars and robotics as much. I thought in the context of what was really interesting and attractive for me is that just like we acquired PSC back in 2021, Planetary Systems Corp, that does the separation systems. You can have a great rocket, you have a great satellite, if you don't deploy the spacecraft properly the mission's lost. And so we wanted to control that risky element of the mission. And so very similarly here we get SATAs. So we get these solar array deployment mechanisms where we've all seen satellites that fail to deploy their solar or their antennas and you've got a botched mission. Now we've further just derisked that and it allows us to sell more bundled solutions to our customers that already buy solar solutions from us and now they can buy the solar plus the SATA and so forth.
So for me there's a very clear commercial focus point. So I think the Mars stuff, all things Pete said, super interesting, very sexy, very motivating for the team. But for me, it just kind of further fleshes out how we just can put this whole platform solution together for our customers and derisk their missions and ultimately derisk our own missions going forward when we own the infrastructure that we're going to build.
Yeah, I mean when we took over SolAero, they would do a cell and a panel and now we can do a cell, a panel, an array, a hinge, a gimbal, everything. So a complete power solution right down to a battery even. So the SATAs that Adam's talking about were one of the last elements of that power chain if you will.
So, does the Motive acquisition solve the SATA supply bottleneck for your own spacecraft production or is it the robotics capability, the bigger prize?
No, it's both. It's both. I mean the SATAs, that's definitely an important device, an important piece. But also, the thing is that if you can build a robotic actuator that can survive in Mars and then you go to that same team and say hey we've got this wing in low Earth orbit, can you build an actuator, it's really not that much of a challenge. So you start off with a team that can do anything and then you ask it to do simple things, then it generally works out pretty well.
As a Canadian, I'm not thrilled that you're moving in on the robotic arm space, but I'll give you a pass. But I figured I'd touch on Flatlight. There was a really big announcement and I haven't heard too much since then. I was just wondering if you could maybe give a little status update. You still kind of building production capacity for that or where things stand.
Yeah, I mean that's obviously our high volume spacecraft platform and there's a team that's beavering away on that to make sure that is a product that's ready for prime time when it's time.
I was also wondering if you could give us a little bit more info on the new silicon solar cells. What makes them super unique? I felt like that kind of didn't get the attention it deserved perhaps.
Yeah, I mean well we looked at firstly at mega constellations and just about every mega constellation uses a silicon cell. And obviously the team is world experts in super high efficiency cells and that's all great. But one of the biggest challenges with the silicon cell is obviously their efficiency is lower. But actually the number that really matters is their efficiency at end of life. And this is where silicon really falls down because at end of life their efficiency drops right off a cliff. So that forces you into really large arrays because when you design a solar array you have to account for the performance at the end of life not performance at the beginning. So you either need really large arrays or really short lifetimes. So this has been one of the challenges with silicon all along and one of the reasons why other substrates are used.
So we set the team a task, like okay how do you avoid that disastrous end of life number? And that's the problem we set them to go and solve and they went and solved it. So, like anybody can go and grab a silicon roofing tile and say it's good for space, but actually the nuance of that is the radiation damage and getting a number at end of life that makes a constellation make sense.
Can I have a follow-up on this one? I was recently visited by a subscriber who actually has a German solar cell manufacturing startup and he was telling me a little bit about, he said somehow that currently the math is not mathing if you want to build like a giga constellation from the current silicon technology. And he said that there's a lot of R&D going into maybe getting the kilowatt price below 100 to maybe $80 per kilowatt for full arrays. And I was wondering how do you see this dynamic in the market with the cells? Like are you researching still how to make a cheaper product or you're happy with what you have currently on the market?
No, no, no. So the design objective to the solar team was obviously the high performance but also the most absurd price that they can manage. So they are definitely looking into other substrates and other technologies that are even cheaper. But the environment of space is kind of difficult as I mentioned before. The other thing, it's like anything in space, it's a giant engineering compromise. And if you have a low efficiency cell then you necessitate really large area wings. And large area wings, if you're in low Earth orbit, of course you still have drag. So you have a lot of drag, so then you need a bunch of EP to keep you in orbit and station keeping. And if you've got a bunch of EP, then you need a bunch of power to run the EP. So you need more solar cells. And you have more solar cells, you have more drag, so you need more EP. And on and on it goes. So then you end up raising your orbit. And you raise your orbit up to 1,000 km where there's less drag, but now you've got huge radiation. So now you've got huge radiation, a much shorter end of life in your silicon, and on and on it goes. So it's not just that simple. There's many kind of levers that you have to trade here to solve that problem. So I know that's a very long-winded way of answering your question, but the answer is yes.
Okay. Awesome. And do you have contact with, because you said that the solar cells were for space-based data centers, like you're getting ready for that? Do you have ongoing conversations with customers from this and how do you feel that market is for this type of constellations?
Well, I think everybody would agree we're very early in that, both as even as a concept. So naturally, if we're bringing a product to market, we want to bring one that's relevant. So we're not just going to create something in isolation. But we have the solar team are literally the world experts in space solar. So they know all these constraints. Sometimes I think they know too much because a little bit of arrogance and the things you don't know is sometimes useful. But anyway, they're trying to solve this problem in the best way they can. And it may be silicon, it may be a different substrate. But at the very least, for the scale that's been contemplated immediately, we've got a lot of products that will suit that application well.
Maybe I'll hop in with a question for Adam. Just kind of curious about the recent capital raise and the structure with the collar is kind of interesting and also you've gone up to a lot more cash than you ever have previously. Is that kind of a good time for it or what's your thinking behind some of those moves?
Yeah, like I think we're focused really on making sure that we've got dry powder to really be in a position to take advantage of opportunities when we see them. You know, we come across deals from time to time that are competitive and sometimes we're competing with people that have much deeper pockets than we do. Some of our traditional kind of space and primes in particular. So, for us, we never want to be caught flatfooted. We found ourselves in the past in deal situations where we had to go get, like, the deal will be contingent on getting financing, which if you spend any time dealing with banks, you'll realize that they're never really there when you need them to be. They'll only lend you money when you don't need it, not when you do need it. And even getting bridge financing can really throw a monkey wrench into the process. So we just never want to be flatfooted or caught on our heels with these kind of things.
Yeah, I think we've been very fortunate. We talked about on the call today that we've been, you know, we raised money starting at like eight bucks even the stock was like at five. And so we did the capped call on that to get us up to eight. And now we're, the cap on the most recent structured ATM was $86.11, I think, was the number. So, I think we've been very very fortunate to be raising capital at increasingly attractive prices. And hopefully we look back at this $86 cap price on a structured call. And I'm as remorseful about raising money at $86 as I was when we raised it at eight.
Right? Because I look back and one of the things that we all beat ourselves up over here. It's like
I know it was you raising at eight—it was the thing to do, it was the right thing to do at the time. But now I was like, wow, raise eight versus eighty bucks? The world has really changed for us, and I think you have to change with it. And so we're trying to be more creative and also just, again, the old saying—you want to be lucky. Well, be lucky—it's when opportunity meets preparedness, right? And I think we've been very fortunate that we've always been very well capitalized. When we look at the ability that we took the Virgin Orbit factory over in Long Beach, that might be the best deal that we ever did. That's what's really enabled us to push hard and fast on Neutron. And I think we were probably a little bit naive that we could have gotten to where we are now without doing a deal like that. We just happened to have the capital on hand and others didn't, and so it put us in a really good spot to go kind of steal that asset. It's been a phenomenally strategic deal, and so we look to do more of those.
Yeah, I want to follow that. So, you guys are a phenomenal team, and I'm sure people have probably told you this before, but I look at you guys and I call you the Thanos of space because you're collecting all the stones that kind of rule the universe. So you guys have this beautiful, phenomenal team that continues to dance really well. The M&A pipeline remains full, but you also make sure that the internal engineers—if it's something like you stated, like Gauss or whatever—that you can build in-house for magnitudes less, you're going to go ahead and do that. Is there anything else that has recently come through that you're like, no, we're not going to pay that, we're absolutely going to do that for way less? And then second, what else are you guys missing? I mean, you've got the robotics now, you've got so many other things. What other choke points do you guys really have to collect all the stones in the universe?
Well, I think payloads are something that we're always looking at because he who owns the payload owns the mission. So that's something we're always looking at. And when we're looking at these technologies, we're certainly evaluating really closely—could we do that for cheaper? And the answer is almost certainly every time yes, but in the time frames that we need is very rarely yes. Like Gauss was an easy one. We could definitely develop that in the time frame we needed. But something like solar that had forty years of R&D and investment—that would take a long time to get there.
Or geo, right? Or geo, yeah. Like all the cleared personnel—that just takes a long time to hire the right people, so a lot of times it comes down to people constraints.
And you know, Pete and I were kind of chuckling a little bit at your question because we always have the debate—it's a raging debate about where do we draw the line on buying things and—
I think it's probably the most contentious thing in the executive suite out of everything.
Yeah, for sure. And I think people underestimate how difficult it is to integrate companies. Rocket Lab's got a very, very unique culture. It doesn't work for everybody. And yet we make every acquisition conform to what we do. When we acquire a company, it doesn't really matter what they've done for the last five, ten, fifteen years—it's either going to meld with what we do or it's not going to survive. And I think we also make these companies stand on their own two feet. We have yet to acquire a business where we just turn it into internal supply. We mandate that they basically pay for themselves and sell their solutions into the merchant market, which does a couple things. It forces them to run the business from a true P&L ownership perspective, and it also puts that competitive dynamic where they're not just getting the inputs on the roadmap from what we need, but they're really getting it from the broader customer set out there, which allows us to have the best thinking about what really is the next best great thing. So I think it's a virtuous cycle, but it does take work. Even when you acquire a little company like Motive, which is a small company in Pasadena, not far from Long Beach—it's going to take work to integrate. The systems, the people, the cultures, the processes, everything has to come together. But I think so far we seem to have found a good balance where we've found the right teams at the right time for the right price and we were able to create value out of them. But there's no such thing as a small deal. Every deal ends up being tremendously time-consuming from everybody in the organization.
Yeah, I mean, even within the business units, we call them all together and we put together the metrics of the business—like revenue per head and a whole bunch of metrics that we care about. We just rank them and we show the ranks to everybody. It's like, there's a first and there's a last—don't be the last. So there's competition even within the business units.
Oh, it's really awesome. That's—I appreciate that.
It's a bit like Lord of the Flies a little bit.
