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Earnings, but make it a launch sequence
Rocket Lab shares are taking off again after the company turned in record quarterly results and reminded everyone it’s not just a tiny space story anymore. Revenue came in at $200.35 million, about 5% above Wall Street’s expectations, and the company capped it off with a record $2.2 billion backlog. That’s the kind of number that makes investors stop doomscrolling and start imagining future launches.
The backlog is the real plot twist
The headline here isn’t just that Rocket Lab beat. It’s that the pipeline looks loaded. A big chunk of that backlog includes a HASTE contract with Anduril, plus a confidential multi-launch deal for five Neutron and three Electron missions — the company’s biggest launch contract so far. Translation: this isn’t a one-hit wonder. It’s starting to look like a business with repeat customers and a growing defense angle.
Wall Street wanted in, too
Needham didn’t exactly stay quiet on the sidelines. Analyst Ryan Koontz reiterated a buy rating and bumped the price target from $95 to $120, which is a very polite way of saying, “Yeah, maybe this one deserves the hype.” The stock was already getting a boost from SpaceX IPO chatter, since a public listing for the Elon Musk machine could act like a rising tide for liquid space names like Rocket Lab.
Big picture
The stock is up hard, and yes, it’s overbought enough to make momentum traders feel a little sweaty. But the bigger takeaway is that Rocket Lab is looking less like a speculative moonshot and more like a company with real backlog, real contracts, and real investor attention. In space stocks, that’s usually when the fun — and the volatility — really starts.