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Disclaimer. OO Insights is an independent, non-commercial project provided for informational and educational purposes only. Data is aggregated from third-party public sources (including GCAT, CelesTrak, and TheSpaceDevs Launch Library 2) and is provided ‘as is,’ without warranty; it may be incomplete, delayed, or inaccurate. Some content, including the weekly brief, is AI-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Figures are derived per our published methodology, which we recommend reviewing. It is not investment, financial, or professional advice. Any reliance on this content is at your own risk.

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Rocket Lab

Independent launch provider
CommercialSmall-liftMedium-lift

Dedicated small-launch leader (Electron); medium-lift Neutron in development to compete with Falcon 9.

Curated info last reviewed July 11, 2026The hand-curated fields on this page (ownership, rocket specs, list prices and the customer list) were last fact-checked against public sources on July 11, 2026. Anything that changed since may not be reflected yet.·Live figures updated just now
Independent — not affiliated with the company profiled.ⓘFigures are derived from public third-party catalogs (CelesTrak, GCAT, Launch Library 2) and may be incomplete or lag reality. Computed KPIs are Open Orbit's own analysis. Spotted an error? Use the feedback button.
Launches YTD
12
3rd-busiest globally YTD
Global launch share
6.6%
of 181 worldwide 2026 YTD
Success rate
100%
24 mo · 41 launches
Mass to orbit
1.2 t
2026 YTD · 0.1% of global
This year
Launch Library 2 · historical launch record · GCAT
Launches12
Share of global launches6.6%
Mass to orbitTotal orbital payload mass delivered this year, from GCAT.1.2 t
Share of global mass0.1%
Success rate (24 mo)Failure rate over the trailing 24 months, from our launch record. N shown for sample size; test-campaign flights are separated from operational reliability per our editorial rule.100% · 41
Scheduled aheadLaunches on the near-term Launch Library 2 manifest. NETs (“no earlier than”) slip routinely.3
Rockets in fleet
curated · GCAT · cargo-utilization
Electron (Rocket Lab)
Operational
Small-liftExpendableReaches LEOLow Earth orbit (up to ~2,000 km) — Starlink, imaging satellites, the ISS.
Payload → LEO
300 kg
List priceThe published sticker price for a launch — not a transacted price, which varies by mission, orbit and contract.
$7.5M*A credible published estimate, not an official specification or a demonstrated figure.
$ / kg
$25,000/kg*A credible published estimate, not an official specification or a demonstrated figure.
Cargo util.
83.8%
Neutron (Rocket Lab)
In development
Medium-liftPartial reuseReaches LEOLow Earth orbit (up to ~2,000 km) — Starlink, imaging satellites, the ISS.
Payload → LEO
13,000 kg
List priceThe published sticker price for a launch — not a transacted price, which varies by mission, orbit and contract.
—
$ / kg
—
Cargo util.
—
Latest launches
Launch Library 2 · failures record
  • Ten Owl Of Ten (StriX Launch 10)
    Jun 26 · Electron · Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1B (NZL)
    Success
  • VICTUS HAZE Puma
    Jun 19 · Electron · Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1A (NZL)
    Success
  • Curveball
    Jun 11 · Electron · Rocket Lab Launch Complex 2 (Launch Area 0 C) (USA)
    Success
  • Viva La StriX (StriX Launch 9)
    May 22 · Electron · Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1B (NZL)
    Success
  • Kakushin Rising (JAXA Rideshare)
    Apr 23 · Electron · Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1A (NZL)
    Success
By launch site
GCAT · last 12 months · 18 launches
Māhia · New Zealand16 89%
Wallops (MARS) · United States2 11%

Upcoming launches

Launch Library 2 · best-effort

Near-term manifest from LL2. NET = “no earlier than”; dates slip routinely.

  • The Grain Goddess Provides (iQPS Launch 7)NET
    Jul 31 · Electron · Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1A (NZL)
    Scheduled
  • StriX Launch 11NET
    Jul 31 · Electron · Unknown Pad (NZL)
    Scheduled
  • LOXSAT 1NET
    Jul 31 · Electron · Unknown Pad (NZL)
    Scheduled
Open Orbit analysisBeta

Launch cadence

Computed by Open Orbit · from launch record

Orbital launches per quarter, with failed attempts highlighted. A shrinking interval between launches signals a provider scaling; a widening one flags bottlenecks. Method →

15 daysaverage between launches, last 12 months — down from ~19 days a year ago (cadence accelerating)
048Q3 '23Q4 '23Q1 '24Q2 '24Q3 '24Q4 '24Q1 '25Q2 '25Q3 '25Q4 '25Q1 '26Q2 '26
Successful launchesFailures

Launches by customer

Computed by Open Orbit · from GCAT

Share of the satellites this provider has launched, by operator — the reciprocal of an operator's launches-by-rocket. Each links to its constellation profile. 15 tracked operators in all.ⓘBest-effort. Counts only satellite operators in Open Orbit's catalogue — rideshare smallsats, one-off, university and government payloads aren't tracked, so this is a floor, not the full customer list. “Exclusive” means the operator has only flown with this provider across our launch record (2014 on); a flight on a provider we don't track, or one before 2014, wouldn't show.

Kinéis22.7% · 25 sats
Spire16.4% · 18 sats
BlackSky13.6% · 15 sats
Planet9.1% · 10 sats
Synspective9.1% · 10 sats
iQPS6.4% · 7 sats
Other operators22.7% · 25 sats

Exclusive customers

Computed by Open Orbit · from GCAT

Tracked operators whose entire catalogued flight history is with Rocket Lab — a read on captive demand, separate from operators that split launches across providers.ⓘBest-effort. Counts only satellite operators in Open Orbit's catalogue — rideshare smallsats, one-off, university and government payloads aren't tracked, so this is a floor, not the full customer list. “Exclusive” means the operator has only flown with this provider across our launch record (2014 on); a flight on a provider we don't track, or one before 2014, wouldn't show. Method →

3of 15 tracked operators fly only with Rocket Lab
  • Kinéis
  • Synspective
  • E-Space

Cargo utilization by rocket

Computed by Open Orbit

Fill consistency — how close each family flies to its own demonstrated peak payload. A consistency read, not absolute efficiency. Full method →

Electron83.8%

How I count this

A directory of the companies and agencies flying rockets to orbit (one row each, click to expand to the rockets in their fleet), joining a hand-curated catalog of providers and rockets to live launch counts, success rates, mass to orbit and cargo economics. Launch providers fly the rockets — distinct from satellite operators, who run the fleets in orbit.

  • Definition▾

    Each row is one launch provider; expanding it shows the rockets in its fleet. I curate the provider’s identity (name, parent company, country, ownership) and each rocket’s specs (lift class, reusability, status, orbit reach, payload to LEO, published list price), then join at request time to live launch activity.

  • Source — launches▾

    Launch Library 2 (TheSpaceDevs), /launch/previous/ for the current year — the same fetch the homepage and /launches use, so the totals reconcile. Launches YTD is a provider’s share of that count; share of global launches is the provider’s count ÷ all orbital launches this year.

  • Source — success rate▾

    My historical launch record (Launch Library 2, backfilled into Supabase) — the same data behind /failures. Success rate is 1 − the failure rate over the trailing 24 months. Providers with fewer than 5 launches in the window are flagged as a small sample (asterisk), because a single failure would otherwise swing the rate wildly.

  • Source — mass to orbit▾

    Jonathan McDowell’s GCAT (launch.tsv), the same dataset behind /mass-to-orbit. Mass YTD is the payload mass a provider has delivered to orbit this year; share of global mass is that ÷ the year’s total.

  • Source — catalog▾

    Provider identity, ownership, one-line context, notable customers and every rocket’s specs are hand-curated in src/lib/launcher-catalog.ts. Western vehicles cite manufacturer spec pages; non-Western and commercial figures are often public estimates with no official spec sheet — those are flagged with an asterisk pending a source-by-source verification pass.

  • List price per kg▾

    Sticker price at full capacity — a rocket’s published list price ÷ its advertised maximum LEO payload. This is NOT what any single customer pays: real missions rarely fill the rocket to its LEO maximum, and rideshare or marginal pricing differs. A row shows its cheapest rocket’s figure. Coverage is partial by design — most state providers don’t publish a price, so their $/kg reads ‘not published’ rather than a guess.

  • Orbit reach▾

    Each rocket is tagged with the orbit regimes it can deliver to — LEO, MEO, GEO, or Beyond (lunar / interplanetary / escape) — from demonstrated capability, or design intent for in-development vehicles. Curated.

  • All orbits vs LEO▾

    Read the denominators carefully. Launches, share of launches, success rate and mass to orbit count ALL orbits — a GEO comsat or an interplanetary probe counts the same as a LEO Starlink batch. $/kg, payload-to-LEO and cargo utilization are LEO-specific, because LEO is the standard reference orbit for comparing capability and cost. So a row’s all-orbit ‘Mass’ and its LEO-only ‘$/kg’ are not the same denominator; the orbit-reach tags on each rocket show where it actually flies.

  • Provider attribution▾

    Launch data arrives keyed by provider, but the three sources name the same provider differently, so I normalize each to one catalog key. The biggest correction is CASC: GCAT splits China’s Long March family across its academies and subsidiaries (CALT, SAST, CGWIC, Changzheng, China Rocket Co.), which I fold back into CASC so its launch and mass totals aren’t undercounted — the launch-provider analog of the Guowang attribution on /constellations. Roscosmos similarly absorbs its VKS, Khrunichev and RKK Energiya designations; JAXA folds in Mitsubishi Heavy (the H3 operator); ISRO folds in its commercial arm NSIL.

  • Coverage▾

    The catalog covers every provider with an orbital launch since 2023 — about 24 providers, roughly 97% of this year’s launches. Launches by an uncatalogued provider show in the page’s ‘Not yet catalogued’ row so the coverage figure stays honest.

  • Notable customers▾

    A curated, marquee list per provider, cross-linked to /constellations where the customer is a satellite operator I track. It’s editorial, not a complete manifest — a live ‘top customers this year’ derivation is planned but not yet wired.

  • Filtering & sorting▾

    Filters apply in the browser over the loaded rows (no refetch) and are encoded in the URL so a filtered view is shareable. Lift class, reusability and rocket status match a provider when ANY of its rockets qualifies; ownership and region are provider-level. Region is derived from the provider’s country — US, China, EU/ESA (the 22 ESA member states) or Other (everything else, including Russia). Within a category, selections are OR; across categories, AND.

  • Limitations▾

    Many payload and price figures are public estimates, not official specs (flagged with an asterisk). List price ÷ max-LEO is a capability-normalized sticker price, not a transaction price. Lift class is curated from demonstrated payload and can sit on a boundary. Success rate uses a rolling 24-month window, so it diverges from program-lifetime figures elsewhere. The scheduled-ahead count is best-effort from LL2’s near-term manifest, not a full backlog. Values are computed live at fetch time; the directory doesn’t yet show captured history.

  • License▾

    Launch Library 2 (TheSpaceDevs) — attribution required. GCAT — Creative Commons CC-BY (J. McDowell, planet4589.org/space/gcat). Rocket specs, list prices and customer lists are curated and attributed per claim to their original source.

Full methodology →When two metrics disagree →
All launches →Failures →Mass to orbit →Cargo utilization →
Launch counts, recent & upcoming from Launch Library 2. 24-month success rate from our historical launch record. Mass from GCAT (J. McDowell), CC-BY. Rockets, specs, list prices, customers and ownership hand-curated. Cargo utilization is Open Orbit's own analysis.