Rocket Lab Corporation Q3 Earnings Call - ROCKET LAB CORP

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Rocket Lab Corporation third quarter 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 the session, you'll 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 11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I'd now like to hand the conference over to Muriel Baker, Director of Corporate and Launch Communications. Please go ahead. Hello, and welcome to today's conference call to discuss Rocket Lab's third 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 harbour 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 and included in such release and our supplemental materials are reconciliations of these historical non-GAP 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 our pending acquisition of Iridium Communications, followed by financial highlights and outlook. We will then open the call for questions. So with that, let me turn the call over to Sir Peter. Thanks, Muriel. it's been an outstanding quarter with new records across the business. Revenue came in at $268 million, 73% higher than the same quarter last year at $34 million, more than Q2. That's the sixth time in a row for record revenue quarters. A Q3 ending backlog hit a new high of $3.57 billion across 117 launches and more than 55 spacecraft. And since the quarter closed, we've added even more launch and space systems contracts. As we head into the final months of the year, I wanted to do a bit of a wrap-up of our achievements for 2026 to put our growth into perspective. Only six years ago, we were making less than 4% of our annual revenue we're expected to bring in this year, from $35.2 million in 2020 to our near-billion-dollar 2026 full-year guide. Our gross margins have also seen dramatic improvement from negative territory in 2020 to a projected 2026 gap gross margin in the 35% range. On a non-GAAP basis, we project margins in the 40s, an increase of over 69 percentage points since 2020. In an industry where execution and reliability are non-negotiable, Rocket Lab has consistently delivered for our customers and we're scaling rapidly and setting new benchmarks every year. I want to dig deeper into the numbers across the business, starting with some highlights from Space Systems. For the year to date, we've signed $688 million in new contracts, up 319% from 2025. Today's space system sits at $1.7 billion in backlog, representing 48% of the total company's backlog. $470 million in new space system contracts was signed in this past quarter alone, a 512% increase from the same period last year. Incredibly strong growth here. Operationally, the team has been executing at a high level with 12 Rocket Lab-built satellites launched in the past 12 months, including missions for NASA, the Space Force, and large constellation operators. Our cleanroom and factories are busier than ever, with more than 55 spacecraft in development and build. On the satellite component front, almost every team has exceeded their annual targets and increased production. We're delivering more critical hardware and subsystems than ever before for our customers' science, national security, and commercial missions. Like the title says, demand for launch has been exceptional this year. The two biggest commercial and defence bulk orders in our history landed in Q3. Eighteen HAST launches for the Space Force's Systems Command, and twenty launches on Electron for our long-time commercial customer, Synspective. Q3 has also been the biggest quarter yet for Neutron, eight launches signed for a total of roughly $515 million, including multiple missions on a new escalated base price of $70 million. The demand is a function of both a tightening global launch supply and our customers' confidence that Rocket Lab is the right partner to break the world's launch bottleneck. It's also been a record year for strategic acquisitions with new capabilities and technology added to our portfolio including laser communications, robotics, payloads and machining capability. Iridium will go further still, evolving Rocket Lab into a true end-to-end space company that not only builds and launches spacecraft but also owns and operates its own constellation with recurring revenue and growth opportunities for future space services. Now speaking of space services, I've historically referred to operating our own constellation as space applications, but going forward we've updated the terminology to better reflect the integrated end-to-end services we'll be providing our customers once Iridium is part of Rocket Lab. We've made great progress this quarter towards closing the Iridum acquisition. The deal is now fully financed with the ATM completed in Q3 and we've secured Iridium's credit facility for after the acquisition closes. This puts us in a great place where we do not need to raise extra capital to close the deal. Another key milestone was checked off when the Iridum shareholders voted overwhelmingly in favour of the transaction. Now we're moving into the final phases, securing the necessary regulatory approvals. This process is advancing well and we're actively pursuing a timely close. The FCC's recent swift approval of other acquisitions demonstrates the Commission's proactive, decisive approach and its commitment to supporting the rapid pace of innovation required in the space sector. We're enthusiastic about collaborating with the Commission as we guide to a generational space company in an exciting new era. Now on to Space Systems operational achievements. In the past 12 months a dozen Rocket Lab built spacecraft have launched and are now operating in space, spanning missions across national security, interplanetary science and commercial constellations. And there's more to come. With more than 55 spacecraft in various stages of development and production, these include spacecraft for the Space Development Agency's PWSA, multiple missions for NASA and the Space Force, and programs for commercial constellation operators. Our clean rooms have never been busier, and with more opportunities on the horizon, we expect that momentum to continue. Now on to launch for the quarter. What a fantastic slide. At the top of the call, I talked about the record growth we've seen this year. But the third quarter has truly been exceptional. More than $1 billion in launch contracts in this quarter alone. No other commercial small rocket flies more than Electron and Haste, and customers keep booking with us because they know that Rocket Lab has the track record, the technology, and the team to deliver their missions. And they know that's what we'll be bringing with Neutron too. We've got the production capacity to back up that flight rate also. Our experience, production facilities, and streamlined processes mean we're rolling a rocket off the production floor now at an average of one every eight work days. This level of production means we can meet surges in custom demand like we've seen in Q3 and delivers on tight timelines to support rapid response missions and maintain the launch cadence that our customers have come to rely on. Electron is closing in on its 100th launch which we expect within the next week or so. As the graph shows that puts Rocket Lab on track to reach 100 launches faster than any other commercially developed rocket in history. It's an unprecedented milestone for a commercial small-lift orbital rocket, and a threshold rarely crossed in modern spaceflight. But what matters most to us and our customers is that we have achieved a 96% reliability rate across 99 launches. That is a powerful combination few others can match, and that's the experience we're carrying on into Neutron. Speaking of which, here's the latest on Neutrons for the quarter. Since our update about Neutrons Stage 1, we shifted our first launch timeline to 2027 after voids were found in the propellant tanks Ford dome. The team has really surged to manufacture a replacement part. The AFP machine has laminated a new Ford dome, the structure has completed its cure cycle and the results show we've got a nice clean Ford dome to move into assembly with the rest of stage one's tank. It's nice to have that problem behind us now. We've already stacked the mid-assembly of the stage one tank which includes a giant barrel section and common dome inside it that separates of liquid oxygen from the fuel tank. Our focus now moves on to completing the forward assembly and the aft assembly which comprises of domes stacked inside barrels similar to the mid assembly. Once that's done these three assemblies complete the stage one tank. The team's focus is on completing that work as soon as possible before we run the tank through a round of hydrostatic tests at the Neutron factory. After that we'll ship it to launch complex three, run a cryogenic quoll campaign and then integrate it with the vehicles other major assemblies already in Virginia. Neutron Stage 2, the suspended stage that hangs in Stage 1, was delivered to Launch Complex 3 recently and has completed a number of pre-test activities before it heads into cryogenic proof tests. After that we'll move Stage 2 into a wet dress rehearsal without an engine to test the stage early in its flight configuration. We'll bring Stage 2 up to flight-like propellant levels and cycle through valve checks to make sure the stage is fully functional, as well as test how we transition from ground control to the stage autonomous flight computer during terminal count. Then we will add the engines and we'll integrate them and run through more tests before moving into static fires. The first piece of flight hardware on the LCO3 launch mount itself is Neutron's thrust module. From the Neuton factory to Wallops Island to the launch mount within 48 hours. That's the beauty of proximity with our facilities in Maryland and Virginia. Like Stage 2, we'll be running Neutron's thrust module through some very important early tests without its engines. By design, Neuton operates without a strong back on the launch mount, so the thrust module is the rocket's only physical interface to the pad. We'll be checking things like launch pad mount hold-downs and release systems, quick disconnect operations, and then conduct some pressure tests and propellant tests to confirm all the interfaces work with the pad It's a great example of a parallel path development approach, systematically de-risking the pad and ground systems now to ensure a direct and efficient path to an integrated testing with the entire vehicle when it's complete. Turning to the Archimedes engine, we continue to make significant progress to finalise the engine including recent cold box testing with Archimede's vacuum variant for stage 2. This is where we expose the engine to the same extreme cryogenic temperatures it will experience during stage 1 flight. to make sure its valves, seals, igniter and turbo machinery don't freeze or leak. Successfully clearing these tests moves the Qual campaign closer to the finish line and gives us a high confidence for the AVAC engine and its multiple restart reliability for Flight 1. That technical maturity is also feeding directly into the build of the Flight 1 engine set and the engines thereafter for Flight 2 and Flight 3 and so on. At the same time, we're also exploring opportunities to ramp Archimedes production to a faster scale post-Flight 1 and meet the high-cadence demand for launches that we're seeing. The massive surge in neutron bookings this quarter is the strongest signal yet of where the launch market is headed. We signed eight missions for roughly $515 million, with multiple flights sold at an elevated base price of $70 million per launch. Neutron's first 16 launches are booked, and the next available slots are in the 2030s, alongside the capacity that we are holding for our own future space services missions. Launch is extremely constrained and that is exactly the situation we predicted We saw a pent-up launch market on the horizon and rather than provide early discounted launches we set out to deliver a rocket into an environment with extreme demand at full price or higher A full manifest before flight one shows you exactly how that's played out Even with the extra time we're taking to get to first flight our customers trust Rocket Lab to deliver and Neutron is the vehicle of choice That wraps up the operational highlights now over to Adam for the financial overview and outlook. Thanks, Pete. Third quarter 2026 revenue was a record $267.8 million, coming in above our prior guidance range of $250 to $265 million and representing year-over-year growth of 73%. Revenue increased by 14.4% sequentially, driven by strong contribution from both business segments, highlighting continued momentum across the business. Our space system segment delivered $214.8 million in revenue for the quarter, reflecting a sequential increase of 13.3 percent. This growth was primarily driven by continued scaling of our satellite platform business, along with full quarter contributions from our laser communications and robotics acquisitions. We also delivered sequential organic growth across our other component and software businesses. Our Space Systems business continues to perform exceptionally well and provides diversification alongside our robust but at times lumpy launch business. Meanwhile, our launch services segment generated $53.1 million in revenue, representing a 19% quarter-by-quarter increase, driven by a two-launch increase in point-in-time electron emissions where the full value of the launch is reflected at launch. Now, turn to gross margin. Gap gross margin for the third quarter was 33.6%, above our prior guidance range of 29 to 31%. Non-gap gross margins for the 3rd quarter was 38.4%, which was above our prior guidance range, of 35 to 37%. Consistent with our Q3 guidance, margins decline sequentially, primarily driven by the first full-quarter contribution from our recent acquisition, Minarik, which brings laser communications capabilities to our portfolio, as well as the lack of tariff refunds that benefited Q2 margins. The decline was smaller than we anticipated, however, due to upside in our component business's profitability, led by solar and our geostack positions optical systems, as well launch favorability driven by reduced production spend and favorable absorption due to a step-up in electron launch and build cadence. As previously mentioned, MINARC will take a few quarters to reach target margins as we align the cost structure, scale production, and implement the Rocket Lab operating system. Additionally, we recorded a forward loss reserve against our Neutron Flight 2 launch vehicle to reflect the nascent stage of the vehicle and related early launch capability and potential impacts to that specific flight's profitability, or lack thereof. Relatedly, we ended Q3 with production-related headcount of 1,728, up 40 from the prior quarter. Turning to backlog, we end in Q3 2026 with approximately $3.6 billion in total backlog, up 52% sequentially from approximately $2.4 billion at the end of Q2, with launch backlog accounting for approximately 52% and space systems representing 48%. We signed a significant volume of contracts across launch and space systems in the third quarter, bringing our backlog to 117 launches and over 55 spacecraft, and making 2026 an incredible year of backlog growth thus far. As Pete mentioned, we signed 54 launches in the quarter, eight of which were for Neutron, with multiple contracts at a new escalated base price of $70 million, underscoring the growing demand and scarcity for medium-lift launch capacity. While bookings across launch and space systems remain inherently lumpy due to the timing of larger, high-impact program opportunities, backlog has grown even as we recognize revenue at a meaningfully higher run rate. We continue to pursue additional needle-moving contract opportunities that we expect will enable us to sustain healthy backlog levels as revenue continues to scale. Looking ahead, we expect approximately 32.9% of our current backlog to convert into revenue within the next 12 months. Additionally, we continue to benefit from relatively quick turns business across launch and space systems components businesses that drive incremental top line contribution beyond the current 12-month backlog conversion. Turning to operating expenses. GAAP operating expenses for the third quarter were $169.3 million, above our guidance range of $143 to $149 million. Non-GAAP operating expense for the 3rd quarter were 130.2 million, which was modestly above our guidance ranges of $121 to $127 million. The increase in GAAP operating expenses relative to our prior guidance was primarily driven by transaction costs associated with the pending acquisition of Iridium, including a $9.4 million expense associated with a change of control of Iriudium's existing term loan fee facility, which was completed during the quarter, but neither the success nor cost could be estimated or predicted at the time we provided our Q3 guidance. In R&D specifically, GAAP expenses increased $16 million quarter-over-quarter, while non-GAAP expenses rose $17.2 million. These increases were primarily driven by Neutron Flight 1 development and production activity, particularly engine production and carbon composite structures, as we progressed towards launch. Q3 ending R&DA headcount was 1,084, representing a decrease of three from the prior quarter. In SG&A, GAAP expenses increased $11.2 million quarter-over-quarter, while non-GAAP expenses decreased $2.8 million. The increase in GAAP SG&As was primarily due to transaction fees associated with the pending radium acquisition I referenced earlier. The decline in non-GAP SG &A was primarily driven by early progress in realizing cost synergies for my Magnarok acquisition. Q3 ending SG&A headcount was 447, representing an increase of 5 from the prior quarter. In summary, total headcount at the end of the third quarter was 3,259, up 42 heads from the prior quarter, turning to cash. Purchases of property, equipment, and capitalized software licenses were $31.1 million in the third corner of 2026, an increase of $5 million from the $26 million in the second quarter. This increase reflects continued investment in Neutron, including the return on investment recovery barge and launch and testing infrastructure. As we progress towards Neutrons' first flight and into production, we expect capital expenditures to remain elevated as we invest in testing, production scaling, and infrastructure expansion. Gap EPS for the third quarter was a loss of $0.12 per share compared to a loss of $.08 per share in the second quarter. The sequential increase in gap loss per share was primarily driven by transaction costs in SG&A and other income, mostly due to the termination of the bridge loan commitment related to the pending Iridium acquisition referenced earlier. Spend also rose on Neutron engine prototyping and composites for the Flight one engine set and stage one tank rebuild. We expect Neutron's spend to remain elevated through first launch, driven by engine materials and the team's labor run rate as costs shift towards sub-assembly test campaigns and vehicle integration. GAAP operating cash flow was a positive $7.2 million in the third quarter of 2026, compared to a use of $84.1 million in the second quarter. This increase is primarily due to a step up in milestone payments on satellite programs, which are lumpy and increasing in magnitude. Similar to the capital expenditure dynamics mentioned earlier, cash consumption will remain elevated due to neutron development and neutron tail production as we scale the business and as we procure longer lead items for our SDA programs. Overall, non-GAAP free cash flow, defined as GAAP operating cash flow less purchases of property, equipment, and capitalized software in the third quarter of 2026 was a use of $23.9 million, compared to a use $110.1 million in the second quarter. The ending balance of cash, cash equivalents, restricted cash, and marketable securities was roughly $4.7 billion at the end of the third corner. The sequential increase in liquidity was driven by proceeds from sales of our common stock under our at-the-market equity offering programs, which generated approximately $2.4 billion in gross proceeds through the issuance of 36.8 million shares, and we completed this program in September. Together with Iridium's amended term loan facility and our available liquidity, these proceeds fully fund the cash consideration and other funds necessary for our pending acquisition of Iridum, which allowed us to terminate our $3.6 billion-dollar bridge facility commitment. We exited Q3 in a strong position to execute on both organic and inorganic growth initiatives, including further vertically integrating our supply chain, expanding our strategic capabilities, and growing our adjustable market, consistent with what we have done successfully in the past. Adjusted EBITDA loss for the third quarter of 2026 was $18 million, which was towards the low end of our guidance range of a $17 to $23 million loss. The sequential $9.2 million increase in adjusted EBITDA loss was primarily driven by elevated R&D spending due to Neutron. With that, let's turn to our guidance for the fourth quarter of 2026. We expect revenue in the fourth quarterly quarter to range between $270 million and $290 million, representing 4.5% quarter-over-quarter revenue growth at the midpoint and growth at 55.9% from the year-ago quarter. We expect strong growth in launch revenue, with a pickup in both point-in-time and overtime revenues, partially offset by a decline in space systems. Within space systems, solar and satellite platforms are expected to decline, coming off of very strong Q3 performances, while the rest of space systems businesses should be up. We expect GAAP gross margin to range between 34% to 36%, and non-GAAP gross margins to range between 39% to 41%. Margins are expected to improve sequentially due to improved mix between launch and space systems and within space systems. We expect fourth quarter GAAP operating expenses to range from $162 million to $168 million, non-GAAP operating expenses to range between $136 million and $142 million. The quarter-on-quarter increases are primarily driven by Neutron development, testing, and readiness activities ahead of Flight 1. We continue to expect a shift in spending from R&D to Flight 2 and subsequent Neutrons production inventory, which is an encouraging sign of progress as we move closer to Neutrons' first flight and supports our path towards meaningful operating leverage and positive cash flow in the future. We expect fourth quarter net interest income to be $45 million, which is generally a function of our elevated cash balance. We expect forth quarter adjusted EBITDA loss to range between $14 million and $20 million, and basic weighted average common shares outstanding to be approximately 681 million shares. Lastly, consistent with prior quarters, we expect negative non-GAAP free cash flow in the fourth quarter to remain at elevated levels, driven by ongoing investments in Neutron development and scaling production. In summary, Q3 was another quarter of strong execution. We exceeded guidance for revenue and gross margins, grew backlog to a record $3.6 billion, and continue to maintain robust liquidity to fund future growth initiatives. We expect this momentum to continue, guiding to increased revenue growth as our satellite platform's business scales and Neutron progresses towards its first flight. We continue to execute across all metrics and are positioned to create significant value ahead. Last but not least, here are some of the upcoming investor events that we'll be attending in the next few months. And with that, we'll hand the call over to the operator for questions. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question at this time, please press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Our first question comes from Andres Shepard with Cantor Fitzgerald. Hey, everyone. Good afternoon. Congratulations on the quarter in the backlog, and as always, thanks for taking our questions. Pete, I wanted to maybe start with Neutron. You know, so last quarter, I think we asked, you know, what does the path to 10 Neutron launches look like as we look beyond the first one? So I guess, you Know, after the slight shift in Neutrons first launch, how are you thinking about the path of 10 Neutral launches now? And what's the quickest that we might be able to get there? Thank you. Yeah, hey, Andre, great to chat to you. Yeah, I mean, obviously, we're always trying to revisit that 135. and I think there's an intense scrutiny on that at the moment and a lot of the things that we've been doing in the background during this period of some of these delays has been to strengthen our ability to increase that rate. So I think we're looking to improve on that rate and you can see we've got a huge backlog to start chewing through. So I don't think we've revised those numbers yet But there's been a tremendous amount of work going to the background as to how we can increase that rate to, you know, to get to Flight 10 faster. Excellent. That's very helpful. I appreciate that. And maybe just a quick one for Adam. So on the backlog, you Know, again, very exciting to see the material increase here. I think we can probably call this year the year of the backlog. My question is actually more around ASPs for launch. So if I heard you correctly, I think you disclosed that future neutron ASPs will increase to about 70 million, which is exciting. So I guess my question there is, how should we think about maybe electron and haze launches for next year and beyond? And is there an opportunity to perhaps increase ASPs here, given how launch-constrained the industry still is? Thank you. Yeah, no, it's a good question, Andre. So I would say, just to be clear, too, that the neutron pricing isn't going to 70. it's at 70, right? So we've already put some in backlog at that price. I think that from here, the price is, you know, I would say logically going up from that new baseline. When it comes to Electron and Haste, I think, you Know, some of the same dynamics are in play when, you know, Pete mentioned in his prepared remarks about how demand has never been stronger and how, you know, we're the leading launch provider, you know, in that small dedicated launch segment. I mean, that's just becoming, you know, just more and more the fact. I I think when, you know, if I look at now where we are and where the demand is coming from Electron, I don't think I necessarily would have predicted to be kind of in this new growth wave. It seems like things were growing very nicely, and then there's been another leg up in demand. And with that, you should expect pricing will go up as well. And we're also starting to see that reflect in the backlog. So I think you're going to see price increases across Electron and Haste. And Haste now is representing a bigger piece of our backlog, which naturally comes at higher ASPs. So I Think the combination of, you Know, kind of lifting of prices across all of our launch services are going to start to be more evident in the model going forward. So I feel very good about where we're at. Excellent. Thank you again. Congrats on the quarter. We'll pass it on. Our next question comes from Edison Yu with Deutsche Bank. Hi, thank you for taking our questions. I wanted to ask about orbital data centers. I think in the past, we've probably been, I think you guys have been a little bit more skeptical than certainly one company out there. And you had this midterm election in the US, which I think many people suspect could slow down the terrestrial build-out. What are your latest thinking, I guess, on what you could potentially do on the space system side for Orbital? And would you expect kind of interest to increase going forward, just given what happened last week? yeah hey edison um so um you know we've always we've always um you know like you say retained a healthy level of um of of kind of skepticism um but i would say that you know we've already been bullish certainly on um defense-based orbital data centers and um also uh clearly i've been wrong plenty of times um so we certainly weren't going to um you know cut off any uh any opportunities for ourselves, hence the reasons why we developed and bought to market the new silicon cell for orbital data centers. Obviously, we have an orbital data center customer for a neutron vehicle, and I would say that, like everybody else, we are doing our fair share of work around, you know, that opportunity. So, you Know, we certainly haven't written it off, and, you Now, we are monitoring all of the events and, like I say, doing our work to make sure that if we are able to gain conviction, then we're in a really good place to be able to capitalize on that. Understood. And just to follow up to that, as you kind of think about the architectures for Orgo data center out there um what do you view as the kind of biggest engineering or or technical bottlenecks or or is it or is there more of a kind of economics thing yeah for me it's it's economics um you know there's there's a number of of kind of uh key things that that have to have to happen um for those economics to close and those key things are extremely difficult so um yeah i think there needs to be some major technological advances to unlock the economics um i think if you want to put um you know smaller data centers of or data centers of a smaller scale in orbit um ithink i think that's all completely doable hence the reasons why we're very bullish on orbital data centers for secure comms or defense purposes i I think that it will definitely happen. But moving all data centers off Earth into space, I think there's a few challenges to solve there. Thank you. Our next question comes from John Godden with Citigroup. Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Congratulations on being fastest to 100 launches on the Electron, even faster than the Falcon 9. Of course, years later, the Falcon 9 is doing 170 launches or so a year, so I thought it's just a good opportunity to revisit the multi-year outlook for Electron launches, and if you could also just talk a bit about how the outlook for electron growth evolves eventually alongside Neutron. Yeah, hey, John. Well, we're not done yet. Give us a chance, but you know, Electron obviously is is not a reusable vehicle. So the big unlock for huge cadence, of course, is reusability. Although, as you can see with the factory and the production rate that we have currently, we can produce a fair bit of those. But next year will be a big year for Electron. We have a huge manifest lined up for Electran and we don't see that subsiding, especially in this market with the likes of other providers of rideshare um uh going away then the next logical um alternative is of course an electron so we see um tremendous uh traction there so um but the nice thing about electron it was at least it was designed to be produced so as you can see you know we're producing one every eight days um there's no uh technological feat required to to double triple whatever that um it's at this point it's just duplicating an additional factory lines and that kind of thing. You can see with our pads, you know, we have multiple pads around the world, so we're well endowed in that side of it. So, you Know, I think there's not too many limiters, you know, on Electron, and there hasn't been ever really. It's how fast the market will grow and evolve to whatever cadence that it ultimately ends up at. that's great appreciate it and if i could just sort of ask a um a little bit of a different question just on supply chain you know huge amount of satellites in development and build obviously launch cadence also growing just a temperature check on the space supply chain anything kind of emerging as uh as an issue that there should be a watch item yeah i mean um not not so much for us because we're so vertically integrated we control so much of our own supply chain um so you know for us um probably the things that we worry about are different things than other people who are building satellites and procuring components from us and others worry about and for us it's it's you know because we are transforming raw materials um into finished items it's more um you know raw materials there's some you know critical minerals and and whatnot that you know continue uh to be a challenge for a number of industries but i think um you as we look across you know our supply chain it really devolves all the way down to just raw materials rather than than you know any particular items thanks for the color appreciate it our next question comes from jan engelbrecht with baird good afternoon peter adam and meryl thanks for taking our questions um perhaps a high level question but we've obviously read a lot about the tightening launch availability later this decade, but I wanted to, from your side, what are customers seeing in Neutron that gives them confidence to commit to these launches before first flight? I know we can talk about mission fit, the technical due diligence, and obviously the 96% mission success rate, but perhaps are there things that they obviously have access to, information and access to you guys, that we just can't see in the public domain that you can just speak to more that obviously very impressive to see 16 neutrons and in backlog anything you can share there thank you yeah yeah well i mean i think it comes down to fundamentally there has been two commercial companies that have developed a vehicle brought it to market and scaled and that has been a spacex and rocket lab so when uh folks walk around and and they do like nobody nobody buys a rocket off a brochure um they they they come and see us and they walk through the factories and and walk out to the launch pad and um and you know we're very transparent with the the um you know our development process and and the state thereof so um you know uh customers are able to to get to get confidence um through their own eyes and um you know i think this this industry is is is littered with poor execution um and um you know we're we've worked hard to to make sure that we have a reputation of of um not that well thanks peter helpful and then if i may just a follow-up just for 2027 i know you guys aren't guiding that yet but it's 20 percent growth from a launch perspective for for haste and commercial electrons so sort of the right way to think about it and obviously you guys were you know a third of the backlog of the prior quarter was with haste which is obviously very attractive from a revenue recognition perspective. And then maybe just to comment on, still tied to launch, but, and Haste specifically, it looks like most of, you know, Mark TB and that program is placed in the base budget. So could we assume very little reconciliation risk for Haste? Thank you. Yeah, I guess I can take the first part of that. So I think on the launch CAGR, I don't think there's any reason to think that 20% is really at risk. I think that we're seeing demand, as we talked about earlier, continuing to grow. So I think the growth, it might be, should be better in many ways next year than we even saw from 25 to 26. So all the demand dynamics are in place. The pricing dynamics are in place now. It's just a matter of execution. But we also have to remind people that execution really has two angles to it, right? We have to have the rockets ready of course but also you know our customers need to be ready with their payloads and and oftentimes in the past you know when if there's been a bit of a hiccup on launch cadence and even quarter it's really not been because of the rockets not being ready it's because the customers will have you know understandable they'll have issues at the last moment they put their spacecraft through the final setup tests and something may not come out uh all to their expectations so they have to put it back through test and that can cause delays so i think what what helps us mitigate that is having such a strong backlog of missions that we can you know We have the luxury sometimes of being able to do a little bit of swapping around of missions and still keep our cadence going. But it's really two pieces. And again, I feel very comfortable that it's not going to be a demand challenge. Hopefully, our customers don't create delivery challenges. And I believe our production teams will be able to deliver the vehicles next year to grow even faster than this year. On the Haste and MarkTB stuff we don't see any reconciliation kind of risks here these programs are pretty bipartisan and long-standing so I think that's low risk Great, thanks Gus, appreciate it Our next question comes from Ronald Epstein with Bank of America Merrill Lynch Hi, Peter and Adam. This is Andrew Steiner on for Ron. Thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to touch on launch capacity again. I think Q3 backlog and rising neutron launch prices did a good job telling the story of tightening capacity. But with a satellite operator declaring it's going to build a rocket, it seems worse than may have thought, or at least myself um you know is that a fair fair takeaway from ast's announcement last week and i guess you know how do you guys think about you know a new unproven launch provider entering the market as a potentially viable competitor yeah hi andrew um i was hoping someone wasn't going to ask that question um so the um yeah look launch capacity is um is is is you know incredibly constrained and as constrained as you as you kind of see um and um you know in in many respects uh we're rooting for everybody because um you know even when we bring neutron to market it's not going to satisfy um the the demand um that required. So, you know, and also 50% of Neutron is for everybody else and 50% is for us. So I think, you know we've always, you follow the thesis that, you the large space companies of the future are going to have their ability to launch their own stuff. And I think this is kind of playing out. Gotcha. And I guess just in a different direction here, you know, it was nice to see the operating cash flow in Q3. You know, how should we be thinking about cash generation going forward ex-Iridium, just given, you now, higher launch prices? You know? And what does, you you know, the ultimate cash generation profile look like once Iridium is integrated into the business fully? Thanks. Yeah, so look, I think that the rising prices for Electron are certainly helping. I think getting the deposits in for Neutron launches are helping. But nothing is really going to, I'd say, permanently kind of reverse the cash flow negativity until Neutlon is really into production, right? So I thinkthat's why, you know—at least all eyes are on Neutrion, getting that to the launch pad and successfully through its first test flight and then scaling into production. I think that's really, we've long said that, you know, we turn, you know, cash flow positive probably about six months or so after Neutron's first flight, right? Because that's when things are really pivoted into production now. Obviously, that changes pretty dramatically, you know, upon a closure of the Iridium acquisition because they already come with strong cash flow. And we've got lots of interesting ideas to improve on that, obviously. But I think that, you know, again, what we're focused on right now is like, how do we, how do we scale our business and turn it into a cashflow positive one? And really all, all of it hinges right now on, on Neutron. There's, there's not quite yet enough scale in space systems, although the business is scaling very, very nicely to offset, you Know, a pretty significant lift and for Neuton. And that's just the nature of, of bringing a new product like, like Neutrion to market. It's, uh, you KNOW, but again, as Pete mentioned earlier in his remarks, we're making great progress there. And, uh you know we're looking forward to that date, you know, sooner rather than later. Gotcha. Thanks. Our next question comes from Trevor Walsh with Citizens. Hey, Jen. Thanks for taking the questions. Peter, if I could start with you. I think when you all made the announcements about the slipping of Neutron into next year, you alluded to some changes or, I guess, maybe your ability to do some other work given the delayed timing, similar to when you had the previous delay around the tank. Could you maybe just provide a little bit more color about what that extra activity is and how, kind of, with that extra time that you're given and how that might influence either follow-on launches and kind of I think some to your comments around the 135 cadence or just reusability or just give us a little bit more perspective on kind of what what else you're allowed to do now given the extended time frame yeah hey trevor good good question i mean it it has been all around um you know how do we how do we increase the uh the launch cadence faster um because that that's obviously the the you know the critical thing so that that'S primarily where the where the work has gone it's um around engine production engine acceptance test um and then also uh you know composite structures um production and acceptance tests and moving all of those things um faster so we haven't been kind of you know acting in a serial fashion um a lot of these things are happening in parallel so um while the tank area is is um is experiencing delays um you know avionics and fluid systems and all of that uh have have not not stopped scaling and um you know we we see um i've been pretty resolute about the 135 um you I would say the pressure at this point to increase that is overwhelming and we are looking at every lever we can pull to increase that flight cadence and I think we've got some really good options there and we can talk about that a little bit later once those are solidified but it's fair to say that we're certainly, the headspace is obviously flight one is important but there's a lot a lot more big brains thinking about really really how do we increase scaling faster right now awesome perfect thanks for the color peter adam maybe switching over to you kind of along the same lines just given the the uptake in r&d expense which i know is you know we've been talking about for a while is very much tied to neutron how should we think about that line and maybe just more broadly you had some good comments around cash flow previous questions So maybe a bit more about EBITDA and just general profitability, just given, again, given the delay of Neutron and how should we think about that? I know you're not giving 27 guide yet, but just how should Webe think about the R&D line specifically kind of heading into next year? The things have changed or moved around a bit. Yeah, I think, you know, fortunately, the our space system segment, which is now by far the largest part of our business, you Know, isn't I wouldn't consider that overly R&B intensive. So I think that, you know, we'll continue to invest there at a pace that continues to drive the top line expectations that we have for, you know, a longer term CAGR, which we've long said is, you know, kind of 20% or so is kind of where we set the bar for that. The launch is going to grow faster than that because when we start introducing, you know, Neutron into the mix. I want to clarify, too, that I think I may have missed it. The cash flow positivity is a little bit delayed later than the six quarters after the first launch. That's really when adjusted EBITDA turns. Cash flow is really more of a function, too, of where we are in investing in the fleet of neutrons. And that's going to take a little bit longer. And that goes back to kind of the question that we, you know, that Pete addressed, which is, you Know, how can we look to scale the business faster? And there might be some things in there that are capital intensive in order for us to kindof really get that rate even higher than what we've already talked about. Um, so I, I think that, you know, right now, again, all hands on deck as far as getting Neutron to the pad, getting that first flight off. Uh, and I think, you Know, the financial model benefits tremendously from, from when that happens and again, first reflected in adjusted EBITDA, which will turn positive, you know, within six months of, of that first successful test flight. And then cashflow is going to follow that again, pending consume decisions that we make on, on how much of a, you Know, accelerator we want to put on growing the fleet, uh, because the beautiful thing about Neutron as a reusable vehicle is that, you know, you're going to build the greatest number of vehicles in all likelihood at the beginning of the program, right? And then once you get those established, then the power of reuse really starts to influence the model. That's when margins expand dramatically, and that's when cash flow really starts to gain momentum. So hopefully that answers your question. I think, again, R&D, we don't see any big R&B needle movers aside from Neuton. And then, of course, you know, once we've gotten Iridium across the line, then, of course, you know, we're always looking at ways to accelerate growth. And, you know, some of that might require a little more R&D than maybe has been historically in that model. But we feel very good also about some of the growth vectors that they've kind of been investing in for the last few years that are just on the precipice of starting to kick in in a major way. Great. Thanks, both. Appreciate the questions. Our next question comes from Christine Lewag with Morgan Stanley. Hey, good afternoon everyone, and thank you for taking my questions. So maybe one on nutrient economics. On Neutron, now you have more production reps under your belt and you've now changed your manufacturing process for some of the products. How is the bill of materials tracking against your original steady state model? And when you think about the efficiency gains from the automated composite layup and archimedes production are there areas where uh things are costing less than you expected and in pairing that with a 70 million dollar base launch price which is a very and by the way congratulations on that significant step up in pricing how should we think about um margins going forward i mean i would anticipate that with a significant 15 million dollar pricing than your initial thoughts uh you can get to that gross margin 30 to 40 percent sooner but then also have a higher steady state gross margin so so any thoughts on a long-term gross margin and neutron would be helpful yeah i'll just hit the the the top level seven peak and dive into some of the engineering pieces of that um but i would say certainly yeah the step up in asp is certainly going to help us get there faster i think we've always had conviction that this is a you know 50 plus gross margin business on a non-GAAP basis. You know, I think that there have been some speculations, you know, about what a comparable, reasonable vehicles margins are at scale. And I think, you Know, we've seen, you Now, some of that with SpaceX coming public. But I think that, You know just as we've Seen a pretty significant expansion in electrons, gross margins, largely a function. I mean, some Of it's come down to bomb cost reductions, but that's really not what moves the needle in the launch business. It's really about absorbing those fixed costs over a greater number of launches, right? So, you know, I think if you think about normal bomb reductions in the, call it six to 10% range on annualized basis, it certainly helps, but it doesn't need to move the needle nearly as much as adding, you're doubling your launch cadence when you go from three launches a year to five launches ayear to 10 launches a year. And that's really what's going to drive the economics in Neutron. But again, I think certainly where ASPs are trending is very, very helpful. And I, I personally don't think that we're we're yet at the end of the of the pricing curve for for neutron it's very early days yeah i think you covered it well adam i mean yeah bomb is bomb is a relatively small expense it's it's all the facilities and the head count and the overhead that that really drive a lot of the costs in a vehicle you have to maintain factories launch sites and all those kinds of things barges um so um the bomb the bomb is not out of bed for sure but um it's it's uh it's probably the the lower influence to um to margins great super helpful and if i could pivot to spectrum there's a lot more industry focused right now on spectrum value and iridium gives you the globally coordinated l-band um but you know when you think about how l-ban is naturally bandwidth constrained as you map out where you rock you want rocket lab to be in the next five to ten years uh do you feel like it's Iridium Spectrum is sufficient for your constellation ambitions or do you think you'll need to acquire a partner for higher throughput spectrum like KU and KaBand and execute your vision as a full space as a service company? That's a very tricky way to ask us, Christine, what future constellations might be. But right now, I think we're very happy with the L-Band. I really like the power of our band, given its ability to penetrate bad weather and environments and that safety critical, defense critical part of the industry, I think, is really interesting and poised for a lot of growth. So at the moment, the band's fine. Of course, we're always looking at Spectrum. We are in the comms business now. So spectrum is relevant to us, but certainly no imminent acquisitions of additional spectrum. Great. Thank you very much. Take care. Our next question comes from Gautam Khanna with TD Securities. Yeah, thanks. Good afternoon, guys. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about demand for Neutron given, as you mentioned, industry capacity for launch has sold out a number of years. Maybe if you could just talk about, I mean, that would suggest there's urgency for customers to place orders before Neutron is proven successful at first launch. So maybe if you Could just talk about the number of launch opportunities you're pursuing and what we might expect for launch bookings in q4 q1 you know like is the pipeline pretty pretty full so we could see quarters similar to what we just experienced in q3 yeah I got some it'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out certainly you know is tremendous demand for you know the soonest launch slots available and you know which has pushed us into the next available slots now in the 2030s and you know all the work that's going on in the background to increase uh increase cadence um so you know i think um we've we've seen you know like i say extreme demand and and customers that we've that we have had long relationships with and have worked with us a long time uh you know literally uh solidify their their their kind of intentions extremely quickly um and that's been that's been consistent. And then going forward, the important thing to remember also is, as I said prior, like 50% of Neutron's capacity is for everybody else and 50% is for us. So we always have to make sure that we retain enough capacity for our own aspirations. Yeah. I would say also to add one more bit of context, a little bit of inside baseball. So, you know, we could have actually booked more launches in Q3 for Neutron than we did, but we actually chose to go for higher ASP and lower volume. So there were customers that wanted to book more launches, but at a slightly lower price. And we kind of, again, stuck to the philosophy that Pete mentioned earlier, where, you know, we're not looking to kind of sell launches at a discount price. We want to make sure that we're maximizing the value. And so we're choosing to be very discriminating about which business we take and how much we take now, because again, I think, you know our biases we think prices are going to continue to go up so why sell out all the capacity now these prices even make sense thank you very much our next question comes from Andre Madrid with BTIG yep thanks for taking my question good afternoon I I wanted to touch on well it seems I got beaten to it. I was going to ask if you had been having conversations with the Office of Strategic Capital about potentially supporting neutron development. And then literally just a couple minutes ago, an announcement came out just on that. So maybe a bit more, $150 million, maybe the terms of that loan commitment, exactly how the funds are expected to be allocated, any color there would be greatly appreciated. sorry um yeah so look i think we're pretty fortunate to be in a position to take advantage of this type of non-diluted financing you always take it we can get it um i think it's on very attractive terms i believe it's like so for plus 100 basis points um so it gives us additional capital to scale key parts of our business neutron in particular um you know i think we've we're very fortunate that you know we've had the ability to you know since you know, since I joined the company almost nine years ago to make sure that financing the business wasn't a constraint on growth. And this continues to be the case. But I think it also just underscores the importance of how launch capacity is very much in focus of the administration. And they're putting, you know kind of some real meat behind trying to alleviate the problem. And I think this certainly does help. So I think this is a helpful indicator, a very positive indicator about where everyone sees the demand constraint and how it can be unlocked. And, you know, capital is certainly a part of that. So, yeah, this is just certainly helpful to our cause to help scale Neutron even faster. That's very helpful. And then maybe, you know, kind of staying on the, you know, the, the government support. I mean, given that we're under a continuing resolution right now, I mean are you expecting us to have any, you know, depending on the length of the, of the CR, a more, you know, aggressive impact or not, or maybe just tell me a bit more about how you guys are thinking about it within your own internal models. How should we be thinking about the lengthof a CR and its potential impact on the business heading into 27? You know, I, it's very difficult to predict, you know, what, how government fundings are going to go. I mean, I think that for us, I thing Pete mentioned earlier, you know, the programs, a lot of the programs that we're in are, you know, already funded. I think they're very strategic. We don't really see a lot risk to our programs in particular. But certainly having more clarity on where the budget is going to come from and where it's going from here would certainly be helpful. But, you Know, I don't know, Pete, if you've got any views on that. No, I agree with you, Adam. I mean, I think it's relatively low risk for us. Got it. Appreciate the color. Thanks, team. Our next question comes from Jeff Van Rie with Craig Hallam. Hey, Peter, Adam, this is Daniel. I'm for Jeff. Congrats on the quarter. On the next 12-month backlog, so that in particular is one of the metrics we follow the most. It's up 47% sequentially. I think that might be the strongest quarter for that ever. Just maybe a little bit more commentary on the next12-months backlog in particular, wondering what drove that. And I say that in particular because I assume, obviously, there's huge launch backlog growth, but a lot of that's the out years and isn't in the next 12 months. And then when I look at space systems backlog, that's up 22%. So this is up even more than space systems. Maybe certain businesses is coming in or pulling in faster than you expected, where maybe some of the durations are pulling in. Just any commentary on the strength there? Yeah, no, look, it's clearly electron haste are huge benefactors right now. So Pete mentioned what some of those drivers are. I actually think that, you know, electron haste, again, are coming into kind of a, again a new leg of growth. And I think it's different by the fact that I think people are just now starting to realize that, on the non-haste side of that equation, that the future lack of transporter and bandwagon, like everyone's concerned about, is going to have to go somewhere, right? And when you look at what the next best alternative is, it really is electron, right. So I think that we may not even yet be seeing the real impact of that, maybe just the very early kind of canaries in the coal mine. So that bodes very well for that business. But, you know, as we've talked about in other periods, the space systems business has grown to be a very, very large piece of the business, right? Approaching 80 percent. And while that will rebalance when neutron starts to launch and also as electron and haze continue to grow, that business is a bit more lumpy. We've got a pretty nice mix, I would say, between our components business and our platforms business. But those, I think on the platform side, those come in kind of lumpy kind of awards. They're getting increasingly large. They take longer to close, but, you know, they really do move the needle when they happen. And that also provides some longer term de-risking where you don't, you're less likely to hit an air pocket if you've got a lot of that kind of in backlog, obviously. So I think overall, in the near term, to your 12-month question, it really is electron haste, because we put some pretty nice programs in a backlog in the most recent quarter. And I would say that that is probably going to continue. And then, again, I think this is probably one of the quarters where we didn't have, I would say, a really large space systems platforms program that got put in a backlog. And those, again, they should take longer, but we're very comfortable with how we position that business. there'll be more of those to come. Yeah. And maybe on that note, that's a natural segue to space systems in terms of, we haven't talked about that too much high level in terms of what's coming next. You know, should we be thinking about some of the key opportunities being some ofthe more obvious ones, like trans-forward tracking down the road, or maybe expanded work on moving target indicators, space-based interceptors? I mean, obviously there's a lot going on at the Space Force right now, and also on the commercial side. Just maybe some thoughts on where you see some of them emerging or strongest opportunities coming from. Yeah, I'll take that one, Adam. I think, Daniel, it's across all of them, right? And kind of back to your previous question, I would say that, you know, space systems has reached a level of maturity and cadence that it's just humming right now. And, you Know, it has taken us a while. You know, obviously, we invested a lot in components and in, you now, making sure we have the elements. So, you Now, when a customer comes to us now, They can expect best value and certainly the best timeline, but also high, high, 100% confidence that the spacecraft that they're going to get built and delivered works and meets their requirements. So whether it's going to Mars and we just did a couple of those trans-Mars injection burns over the last 24 hours, 48 hours, or commercial constellations for comms, we have all the bits sitting on the shelf that we can put together quickly. We have all of the designs that we re-use and the execution is trusted and we build reliable platforms. And I know that that just sounds like table stakes, but it's not as common as you think in the space industry for all of those things to occur. So I would say that a lot of returning customers and creating more and more opportunities for us and continuing to kind of feed itself in many respects. Yeah, and I would add just a little bit to that. I think we haven't yet really started to see the influence of, like, other sovereigns' investments in space, right? I think that's kind of probably the next, you know, demand signal to really start to emerge because, you know, if you look at our backlog today, the vast majority of it is U.S.-derived on the space systems platform side, particularly around STA-TRONCH-2 and STA TRONCH 3 and AMTI and so forth. But I think that the benefit that we or the position we find ourselves in is that the industrial base doesn't really exist in a lot of these places that are realizing they need these capabilities. And so it'll be a very helpful thing to people like us that have all those capabilities, as Pete said, that are on the shelf to pull things together relatively quickly. And again, I don't think that that has really started to be reflected in the model yet. Thanks, Peter. Thanks. kind of. Our next question comes from Michael Lisha with KeyBank Capital Markets. Hey, good afternoon. I wanted to ask on Neutron and your expectations of about 50% of the launches there to be internal for yourself. When do you expect that first internal Neutrin launch? And is that something that comes after you get through your entire existing backlog or could an internal launch come before then um and then i guess in the same vein is that does that look like an iridium related launch to update the constellation in the mid-2030s or are you expecting the internal neutrons to be primarily used for a separate rocket lab initiative in the future yeah michael um number of different reasons one um uh you know having your own platform and enables you to retire a whole bunch of risk in new technologies and new ideas and the marginal cost for us to do so is really, really low. You know, Iridium's Constellation will need replaced at some point, so certainly Neutron is a key enabler for that. And, you know, when I say 50% for us and 50% everybody else, that's not out of the chute, obviously. You know we'll burn down a whole much of contracted launch so that number will skew to our customers really heavily for quite some time, but I would say that the long-term view and the long- term kind of expectation, at least for me, is the 50-50, so certainly not imminent, but in the longer term, we expect to have not just one service or application on all, but we expect they have many, not just Iridium, but other things, so reserving that capacity now is just prudent. And then I wanted to ask on the Alaska pad, what's the latest update on the build out there in Alaska? And should we expect the first launch in early 27 or otherwise? And how many HACE launches will that pad be able to handle annually? Thank you. Yeah, that's a great question So there's actually two pads there, not one pad There's two pads side by side So its capacity is pretty high because we can turn a launch as people have seen in 16 hours 42 minutes So I think we have plenty of capacity there and remain on track for a 2027 launch out of those pads and multiple thereof Great, thank you Our next question comes from Eric Rasmussen with Stifel. Yeah, thanks, and congrats on the backlog growth in neutron bookings. Maybe just a lot of questions have been sort of answered here, but on iridium, maybe which opportunities could maybe accelerate iridiums growth within the first two years that you think uh once you close the acquisition um you know maybe we'll start there yeah hey eric um look they've got some really exciting um things as adam alluded to that they've been working over the last couple of years so um you some of those around um pnt and direct direct to device um they've been you know they've Been working on i think uh under a rocket lab umbrella i think there's a bit more freedom to to push harder and faster so um uh so i think you know, those will be brought to the fore and, you know, hopefully in short succession. Great. And then maybe you've obviously talked a lot about electron and haste and the strength there. And I think Adam touched upon sort of a 20% or plus cadence for next year book. What does that mix look like for next years? year in terms of if we are at a 20 plus percent pager next year what is that mix between standard electrons versus hastes? I'm always hesitant to answer those ones because it's a hundred percent determined on customers programs and their ability to execute and deliver on time. I think You know, nominally there's something like 15 HACE missions, but, you know, those HACE missions are highly dependent on, you know, customers' programs and turning up on time. So, you know, it's kind of hard to say with any certainty because it can move around pretty wildly just from quarter to quarter. Yeah, Erica, I think a little more specifically, I think that right now, again, we're not giving guidance for 2027, but roughly around 25% of the total small dedicated launches could be HACE next year, could be a little bit more, could be legit, but in that range. Great. That's helpful. Appreciate it. Our next question comes from Anthony Valentini with Barclays. hey guys thanks for taking the question um what what um like quarter or month are you guys marching towards internally um for neutron in 2027 well we haven't we haven'T provided uh guidance on that uh just yet because we need to get through the stage one tank and um you know I think uh if I if I provide provide a date clearly i've been wrong so what the approach we took instead is to provide um you know sort of weekly or even some cases bi-daily updates and the the progress you know of that uh of that tank and you know really until that tank is through the gauntlet of all of its testing um it's it i just i think it's um i just don't want to be continually wrong totally valid it makes sense um i know that you guys are focused on Neutron here, but it seems like the industry is going larger and more reusable. And for some of these future aspirational things like global data centers, it seems like you need larger rockets. And so I guess I'm curious from your perspective, Pete, are any of the things that you guys have aspirations to build out dependent on having a larger rocket? And do guys think that you will have um a new product after neutron and once you guys are launching a cadence oh man i don't want to build another rocket i think two is two is enough for any person um but in in all seriousness um if you look at the average mass uh that falcon 9 uh has lifted in its commercial sense you know ignoring starlink um it's about five tons and you know some of the sizing designs that we worked through with Neutron was, I mean, the reason why we landed on 13 tons was to enable human spaceflight. That was basically what pushed it up to that 13 ton class. Now, when you're deploying constellations, the way you need to look about it, think about it as not cost per kilo in your rocket. It's actually cost per satellite delivered in orbit. That's a metric that's the only metric that matters. And you can achieve that with a large rocket launching you know infrequently or a smaller rocket launching more frequently but certainly as we look out into you know our future and the things that we want to to go and deliver Neutron is perfectly sized. I think your point is valid if you wanted to to put up data centers which is just just a tonnage equation then a large vehicle makes perfect sense But, you know, I think, you know, to date, the most successful rocket in history is sized around where Neutron sits. And although, you know, the future might change, I don't think I think like I say for any of the aspirations we currently have and any of the, you Know, the large teams that we want to play in, Neuton is plenty big enough. Okay, great. Great answer, Pete. I appreciate it. But just just in saying that I did have to eat a hat because I once said I was never going to build a bigger rocket. Never say never, yeah. Yep, yep, so never say never. Understood, thank you. Our next question comes from Suji De Silva with Roth Capital. Hi, Pete, hi, Adam. I appreciate on Neutron you're trying to hold the line on a premium pricing here, Adam, but how would you think about how you temper forward bookings, how far you're willing to go in terms of units booked if you were able to get that price? it's a tricky question right i mean you kind of know the deal you want when it's put in front of you and i think that you know a deal hasn't put in in front of us that would that was enough to take you know that much capacity off of our roadmap so i think we're we're testing where where the you know the elasticity of the market is right now and you know i think it's changed a lot in the last six months for obvious reasons it could continue to change more in the next six months right so i think we are just trying to be judicious and not you know keep some dry powder so that we can continue to drive those ASP increases if the market conditions continue to trend as they are. Yeah, it is an unusual problem to have so much demand. My other question really is since Neutron is trending longer term toward half being used for in-house, Pete, how should I think about the space calf manufacturing footprint you have? I kind of think of it as kind of a custom shop now, but would it be a trend toward a more volume shop over time, or is it already configured the right way? Just curious how that would play out. Yeah, no, it's a fair call. I mean, look, a tremendous number of the business units within the space systems are volume shop. I mean we're the largest space-grade solar manufacturer in the world in that sense. So there are a lot of the component-level pieces already there. And, you know, but going forward you've seen obviously our flatulite and also our U.S. government contract for those flatulites as a vendor B for the, you know, for the Starshield programs. So, yeah, I mean, we see definitely in our future, you know, high-volume satellite manufacturing, hence the reasons why, you know, we developed the components at high volume and also that Flattolite platform. Helpful call, Pete. Thanks. Our next question comes from Ryan Koontz with Needham. Great. Thanks for the question. Maybe just a quick one here on the great book that you had in the quarter. Specifically around Neutron and the timing uncertainty. I mean, how should we think about, you know, kind of the contract terms and the Neutrin uncertainty in terms of, you know, customers' ability to cancel, find new vendors? I mean what's the general framework investors should think about there relative to Neutrion bookings right now given the uncertainty? Thank you. yeah no great great question one i mean none of these contracts are janky contracts where um you know they've got um uh silly things in them um and obviously you know our customers do a lot of due diligence with us we have long relationships with them and we're very transparent in in where we're at i think you know all of the um the early customers of neutron um uh know that that we're bringing a vehicle to market and we're developing a new one and we'RE moving as quickly as we can. So we will, you know, if there is any change, we'll, of course, you now, keep them well, you know well aware of anything. But you know that's kind of you know the deal and you know even with that, you know our customers obviously have a lot of faith in us and, you know, believe that we're the best option for their, you know, future launch needs. Yeah, and Ryan, I would say, as you know there's been a bunch of shenanigans in the past in this industry about people putting, you know, putting forward, you know, their backlog as true backlog when it's really options, you know, there's no deposits, that's not the case here. These are, you know, if you can expect them to look a lot like, if not exactly like our standard LSA that we have experience with Electron, where people put down real deposits. They're not options. There's cancellation fees and all kinds of stuff. So we've always put a lot of focus on making sure that we have very, very solid backlog and that we don't fall into the trap that maybe some other folks have. So I think we feel very good about the state of the backlog. That's great. Appreciate the call there. That concludes today's question and answer session. I'd like to turn the call back to Sir Peter Beck for closing remarks great and thanks very much for joining all the call and the great questions and we we're very pleased with the quarter and we look forward to the next one so thanks very much this concludes today's conference call thank you for participating you may now disconnect