World domination awaits.

Hey everyone,

Following the recent awesome news about the Archimedes vacuum engine full-duration hot fire at Stennis, I’ve been trying to piece together where the rest of the vehicle infrastructure stands.
I’m curious if anyone has insight on how progress is going with the carbon-composite structures—specifically Stage 1. I know earlier this year the hydrostatic tank test failure re-baselined the timeline to late 2026 so the team could transition tank production to the automated fiber placement (AFP) machine in-house. Because carbon fiber manufacturing and laying down those composite matrices can be incredibly tricky to dial in, I’m wondering:

Have there been any major hurdles or unexpected learning curves with the new automated tank builds?

Is the timeline still strictly bound by the engine qualification gates, or is the structural fabrication of the first flight tank the primary bottleneck right now?

Would love to hear from anyone close to the rocketry side of things on how the hardware is looking on the floor or out at Wallops. Go Electron and go Neutron!

As most should remember, the first stage 1 tank failed during early testing back in January. All that's been said is that the next tank is "already in production".

Well it's been 6 months since that time and we haven't seen the next tank for testing. Or have i just missed it? Seems an incredibly long time for a tank production, even early in the program. Sure breeds speculation of production issues with the large composite tanks.

The interstage also failed a bit above qual loads last month, which doesn't help these concerns.

I don't say this to be overly negative, I'm genuinely asking since it's been an entire 6 months since we've seen a stage 1 tank. Where are we at with testing?

“The grain goddess provides” launchpad aborted at 0 count.
At least it didn’t blow up🫣

tl;dr: Rocket Lab is acquiring Iridium for about $8B to add the third leg of its business, operating its own constellation with recurring revenue and scarce, globally coordinated L-band spectrum, at a price Iridium's cash flow helps justify. The strategic logic is sound and Beck has signaled it for years; the real questions are the leverage RKLB is taking on, whether Iridium's people and government relationships stay, and integrating a service business that's a different kind and scale than anything RKLB has absorbed before.

A first-principles analysis of RKLB is available at: reviews.sparkyscoffeefund.com/rklb

RKLB is acquiring Iridium (IRDM) for $54 per share, about $27 in cash plus roughly $27 in RKLB stock (exchanged inside a $67.50 to $112.50 collar), an enterprise value near $8.0B and a 24% premium to Iridium's pre-announcement price. It's a two-step merger intended to be tax-free, funded by a $3.6B bridge loan from Deutsche Bank and Wells Fargo plus balance-sheet cash and additional debt and equity, with close expected mid-2027 (it needs an Iridium shareholder vote, antitrust clearance, and FCC license transfers). Iridium brings 2025 revenue of ~$872M, ~$495M of operational EBITDA at a 57% margin, ~$114M of net income, $1.7B of net debt, 2.55M subscribers, a 500-plus partner ecosystem, and that L-band spectrum.

1. The third leg: launch, build, operate. RKLB has been a launch company (Electron, Neutron) and a satellite-and-components builder (Space Systems). Operating its own constellation with recurring service revenue is the leg Beck has described for years as design, build, launch, AND operate. This isn't a pivot; it's the stated endpoint finally arriving. Two underrated implications: it gives RKLB a captive internal customer (Iridium's eventual constellation replacement flies on Neutron and rides RKLB-built buses), and it adds recurring, predictable revenue to balance lumpy launch and government-contract revenue. The closest analog is SpaceX/Starlink: one integrated stack from rocket to end service.

2. Spectrum is the actual prize. You can build rockets and satellites. You cannot easily get globally coordinated, interference-protected L-band licensed across 120-plus jurisdictions. That's why the whole sector is consolidating around mobile-satellite spectrum: Amazon bought Globalstar (~$11.6B, with Apple as anchor), SpaceX bought EchoStar's spectrum (~$17B), AST picked up Ligado's MSS rights, and SES bought Intelsat. Iridium was the obvious remaining target. Its edge is reliability and truly global coverage (it works over open ocean and at the poles), not raw bandwidth, so think safety-of-life, maritime, aviation, IoT, government, and GPS-backup PNT rather than competing with Starlink for phone broadband.

3. Management is better than people are giving it credit for. Matt Desch has run Iridium since 2006. He financed and built the $3B Iridium NEXT constellation on budget (2017 to 2019, while operating the old one and safely de-orbiting it), took the company public, sits on the President's national security telecom advisory committee, and has won the Wash100 twelve years running. The bench is deep and was refreshed cleanly over the last couple of years; notably, COO Suzanne McBride ran the last constellation-replacement program, which makes her the single most valuable person to retain (the person who ran the prior rebuild could run the next one inside the company that builds the bus and flies the rocket). This is a turnkey operating org with twenty years of running a mission-critical global network and the government relationships that come with it.

4. Culture is the real integration risk, and it doesn't show up in the deal math. These are different companies. Iridium is a lean, disciplined survivor (it literally rose from the famous 1999 bankruptcy), government-and-operations-led, dividend-paying, cash-disciplined, McLean VA, around 700 people. RKLB is founder-led, mission-driven, pre-profit, reinvest-everything, hardware-intensive, Long Beach CA, around 2,600 people, no dividend. Iridium's dividend almost certainly goes away (cash gets redirected to debt and the next build), which changes the story for a workforce used to a stable, returns-oriented operator. And the assets being bought are partly trust-based franchises: the DoD relationship, the spectrum and regulatory portfolio, the partner ecosystem. Those walk out the door with the people who hold them, so retention matters more here than in a typical deal.

5. Finances: accretive, but it transforms the balance sheet. The good: Iridium throws off ~$495M of OEBITDA and strong free cash flow, and RKLB is only roughly breakeven (first positive adjusted EBITDA guided for Q2), so the deal is immediately accretive at the cash-flow line and largely removes the cash-burn worry that's dogged the stock. The cost: RKLB takes on real leverage for the first time. Roughly $3B cash plus ~$3B stock (about 5 to 6% dilution) plus Iridium's $1.7B net debt puts pro forma gross debt on the order of $4 to 5B against combined near-term OEBITDA of ~$450 to 550M. One nuance most takes miss: Iridium generates cash right now because its constellation is already built and paid for (a harvest window), and the next-gen replacement in the early 2030s will cost billions. RKLB inherits that bill, but it also captures the build internally, which turns a future Iridium cash outflow into RKLB launch and manufacturing margin.

6. It's a different kind of deal than RKLB has done before. RKLB's M&A record is clean (Sinclair, SolAero, Mynaric, Motiv), but every prior deal was a hardware or components tuck-in folded into Space Systems, each well under a few hundred million. Iridium is an operating telecom with a subscriber base, a regulated-spectrum portfolio, and a government-trust franchise, at twenty to fifty times the scale. The integration muscle is proven for hardware; this is a new kind of integration and by far the largest. That's not a reason to bet against Beck, but it's honestly where the execution risk lives.

What to watch between now and close:

• Regulatory path (antitrust, FCC license transfers, the Iridium shareholder vote) toward a mid-2027 close.
• The S-4 and pro forma financials, plus whatever RKLB says about its permanent debt structure and deleveraging plan.
• Whether Iridium's key people (McBride above all) and the government relationships stay; retention terms weren't disclosed at announcement.
• The EMSS DoD airtime contract, which runs out in September 2026 and needs a renewal during the deal's pendency.
• Neutron's first flight (targeted Q4 2026), now also the rocket that will eventually relaunch Iridium.

Net: the strategic case is strong and long-signaled, the price looks defensible given the cash flow and the spectrum, and the open questions are execution, leverage, and people, not the logic. None of this is investment advice.

Hi everyone,

I’m currently working as a panel beater and have been in the trade for about 15 years.

To be honest, I feel like I’ve hit the ceiling in my current career and I’m ready for a new challenge.

Rocket Lab has always been somewhere I’d love to work, especially in a Mechanical Assembly Technician or Production Technician role.

I’d love to hear from anyone who’s made a similar move, or anyone who works at Rocket Lab.

A few questions:
Does my background line up with these roles?
What skills would transfer over the best?
Is there anything I should learn or any courses worth doing before applying?
If you came from another trade, what helped you get your foot in the door?

Cheers!

The transaction will give Rocket Lab an immediate foothold in space-based applications, including both proprietary and standards-based satellite Internet of Things (IoT) and direct-to-device (D2D), PNT, and critical safety-of-life services, creating a formidable challenger in the global telecom market. Rather than simply continuing the Iridium network, Rocket Lab will build upon it to scale into untapped markets and pioneer new space-based services to the benefit of global customers.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rocket-lab-to-acquire-iridium-in-historic-deal-creating-a-fully-vertically-integrated-space-powerhouse-primed-for-growth-302813075.html

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1RF8EylqISc

Beautiful Electron lift off yesterday from Launch Complex 1 for @synspective.

Today's 'Ten Owl Of Ten' launch by the numbers:

🚀 12th Electron launch of 2026

🔥91st Electron mission overall

🦉 10th deployment of a StriX satellite (17 more to go)

⭐100% mission success for all Synspective missions

How often do they restock flight tags?

This latest mission brings Rocket Lab’s overall launch tally to 91 missions, continuing to make Electron the world’s most frequently launched small-lift orbital rocket. Another 17 missions are booked for Synspective to complete the deployment of their constellation by the end of the decade. The next of those 17 upcoming missions is expected to launch in early Q3 this year.

https://rocketlabcorp.com/updates/rocket-lab-completes-10th-consecutive-launch-with-100-mission-success-for-synspective/