'There's tremendous demand': Rocket Lab raises price of Neutron launch from $55 million to $70 million
9) that it recently raised the price of a Neutron launch from $55 million to $70 million — an increase of more than 25%, for a ride on a rocket that's set to debut in 2027.
- "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." Rocket Lab is best known for Electron, a workhorse small-satellite launcher that debuted in 2017 and now has 90 orbital missions under its belt.
- Last month, for example, Rocket Lab announced that it was delaying the first Neutron flight from late 2026 into 2027 due to a manufacturing issue (which it says is now under control).
- During Monday's call, Beck revealed that Rocket Lab booked eight Neutron launches during the third quarter of 2026, which ran from July 1 through Sept.
"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," Beck said.
"Launch is extremely constrained, and that is exactly the situation we predicted," Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck said on Monday during the company's third-quarter earnings call.
- The coming launch bottleneck should increase demand for Electron as well as Neutron, Beck said during Monday's call.
- For some perspective, and comparison with Neutron: SpaceX currently charges $74 million for each Falcon 9 launch.
- Rocket Lab announced Neutron back in 2021 and first targeted a 2024 debut for the vehicle.
- The contracts for those eight flights are worth "a total of roughly 515 million, including multiple missions on a new escalated base price of $70 million," Beck said.
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