Rocket Lab, founded in 2006 and headquartered in Long Beach, California, is an end-to-end space company that designs, manufactures, launches, and operates rockets and spacecraft. It is publicly traded and maintains operations across the U.S., Canada, and New Zealand, serving commercial, civil, defence, and academic customers globally.
The company's Electron rocket is the second most frequently launched U.S. rocket, supporting dedicated and rideshare missions. Its broader product line includes complete spacecraft solutions encompassing satellite design and manufacture, flight software, star trackers, reaction wheels, separation systems, solar power systems, and radios. Rocket Lab's technology has enabled over 1,700 missions and deployed more than 200 satellites.
Technical work spans aerospace engineering, rocket and spacecraft manufacturing, 3D-printed Rutherford engines, carbon composite structures, and satellite subsystems. The company describes a culture in which small teams own projects from concept to orbit, engineers design and test their own hardware, and decisions are made by those closest to the technical problem.
