WASHINGTON \u2014 The failure of a propellant tank during testing in January will delay the first launch of Rocket Lab\u2019s Neutron rocket to at least the fourth quarter of this year.<\/p>\n
In a Feb. 26 earnings release, the company said it was pushing back the inaugural launch of Neutron after a first-stage propellant tank ruptured during testing Jan. 21<\/a>.<\/p>\n Peter Beck, chief executive of Rocket Lab, said the tank burst during a hydrostatic pressure test at a company facility in Maryland. \u201cI do want to point out that this was unexpected and, ultimately, we had anticipated that this tank would pass qualification,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe tank did meet its anticipated flight loads, but as we prepared to open up the test bounds and push the pressures and loads beyond this to understand the margins and the structure, the tank let go earlier than we expected,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n An investigation traced the failure to a manufacturing defect that reduced strength in a critical joint in the structure, a finding confirmed by both engineering analyses and testing. The defect came from the process of hand-laying the composite tank sections, done by a contractor.<\/p>\n The company had already planned to produce future tanks using an automated fiber placement machine that promises faster production while eliminating any chance of creating similar defects. Beck said Rocket Lab will also introduce \u201csome minor design changes\u201d into the tank design that will increase design margins and improve the ability to manufacture it.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce completed, the new tank will undergo an extensive test and qualification campaign to verify flight readiness, and we\u2019re going to take our time with that process,\u201d he said. \u201cThe priority will always be to bringing a reliable rocket to market, even if it means taking a few extra months.\u201d<\/p>\n That extra work will push back the first launch to no earlier than the fourth quarter of 2026. Before the failure, the company said it expected to have the first vehicle on the pad in the first quarter, but had not specified when it would launch.<\/p>\n The company is continuing to work on other elements of the first Neutron and plans to use the extra time for more testing of those components.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just has given the other subsystem teams the opportunity to really fully exorcise all the demons, if you will, much more than they could have under the compressed time schedule that we were working towards,\u201d Adam Spice, Rocket Lab\u2019s chief financial officer, said on the call. \u201cIn some ways, the tank letting go will create certainly a lower risk test flight when that happens later this year.\u201d<\/p>\n Beck, though, declined to say if the company could have achieved its previous goal of putting the first Neutron on the pad this quarter had the tank not failed. \u201cThe moment that happened, everybody just stopped what they were doing in a lot of senses to get onto the tank to figure out what went wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n Electron demand<\/p>\n While Neutron faces delays, Rocket Lab says it is seeing strong demand for its existing Electron small launch vehicle. The company announced Feb. 26 a new contract with BlackSky for four dedicated Electron launches of that company\u2019s Gen-3 imaging satellites.<\/p>\n The contract brings the number of Electron launches for BlackSky to 17 since 2019. Beck stated in the earnings call that Rocket Lab sold more than 30 Electron launches in 2025, including flights of the HASTE suborbital version of the rocket.<\/p>\n He said the contracts cement the company\u2019s position as the leading provider of dedicated small satellite launches.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very clear when smallsat operators need a dedicated ride to orbit, they come to Rocket Lab, and we\u2019re proud to hold this title and look forward to expanding the record again further this year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He contrasted Rocket Lab\u2019s success \u2014 the company performed 21 Electron and HASTE launches in 2025 \u2014 with the struggles of other small launch vehicle developers, noting that no American or European company successfully flew a new small launch vehicle in 2025.<\/p>\n That included being almost dismissive of European startups developing small launchers. \u201cThey\u2019re certainly giving it a good college try, but not having tremendous success, I would say. That is just how difficult launch is,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Only one European newcomer, Isar Aerospace, attempted an orbital launch of a small rocket in 2025, with its first Spectrum rocket crashing shortly after liftoff last March<\/a>. Isar and other European companies are working towards launches this year, although one leading player, United Kingdom-based Orbex, filed for bankruptcy earlier this month<\/a>.<\/p>\n Rocket Lab said it expects to conduct more than the 21 launches it performed in 2025. \u201cWe\u2019ve nominally pointed people towards 20% growth,\u201d said Spice when asked about launch plans for 2026. \u201cI think that is a pretty reasonable estimate for where we see this business growing over the near and intermediate to maybe long term.\u201d<\/p>\n A 20% growth in launches would mean at least 25 Electron launches in 2026. \u201cWe\u2019ve certainly given the production team direction to produce significantly more rockets in 2026 than in 2025,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 The failure of a propellant tank during testing in January will delay the first launch of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135315,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[2164,61,60,78551,23661,82,1935,247],"class_list":{"0":"post-320564","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-electron","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-neutron","12":"tag-rocket-lab","13":"tag-science","14":"tag-sn","15":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}