{"id":883806,"date":"2026-10-16T01:36:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T01:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/883806\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T01:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T01:36:14","slug":"rocket-lab-stock-tumbles-as-effort-to-take-market-share-from-spacex-slips-to-2027","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/883806\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocket Lab stock tumbles as effort to take market share from SpaceX slips to 2027"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Rocket Lab (RKLB<\/a>) stock tumbled as much as 14% on Thursday after the space company said the first launch of Neutron, its reusable medium-lift rocket, slipped to 2027. <\/p>\n

The stock ended Thursday’s session down 6.6%. <\/p>\n

Rocket Lab had targeted the fourth quarter of 2026 for Neutron’s debut. CEO Peter Beck blamed manufacturing issues in the forward propellant dome on the rocket’s first stage. <\/p>\n

“They don’t necessarily mean that the dome would fail on flight, but our practice is to proceed only when we believe the system has the appropriate margins,” Beck said in a video update, according to Stocktwits. “Possible success isn’t our standard.” <\/p>\n

Read more: Wall Street is ‘tiring of the Bank of Nvidia, the Bank of AMD and the Bank of Broadcom’: Baird’s Mortonson<\/a> <\/p>\n

55.25 -3.93 (-6.64%) <\/p>\n

At close: October 15 at 4:00:00 PM EDT <\/p>\n

55.57 +0.32 (+0.58%) <\/p>\n

Overnight: 9:36:04 PM EDT <\/p>\n

Beck said the company has identified manufacturing fixes and expects to finish assembling the first stage within the quarter, when it will be in a better position to announce a launch date. He also pointed to strong demand and upcoming contract announcements. <\/p>\n

Neutron is central to Rocket Lab’s effort to compete for larger missions in a market dominated by SpaceX’s (SPCX<\/a>) Falcon 9. Its schedule has slipped before: Rocket Lab unveiled the rocket in 2021 with a 2024 first-flight target, then moved it to mid-2025 and then to 2026. A first-stage tank ruptured during testing in January. <\/p>\n

The plunge came after a 7.9% drop in Wednesday’s regular session, before Rocket Lab released the update at 4:40 p.m. ET. <\/p>\n

If Thursday’s drop holds through the close, it would be Rocket Lab’s lowest close since December 2025. The stock is down around 25% this year and about 65% below its 52-week high of $151, set in May. <\/p>\n

\"RocketLab<\/a> RocketLab CEO Peter Beck poses for a portrait at the company’s headquarters on June 10, 2015, in Auckland, New Zealand. (Phil Walter\/Getty Images) \u00b7 Phil Walter via Getty Images <\/p>\n

Space stocks were already under pressure. AST SpaceMobile (ASTS<\/a>) fell 10% Wednesday after Piper Sandler cut its price target to $54, citing competition from SpaceX. <\/p>\n

Rocket Lab is also working<\/a> to close its deal for satellite operator Iridium (IRDM<\/a>). <\/p>\n

Cantor Fitzgerald kept its Overweight rating and $122 price target on Rocket Lab after the update, according to Yahoo Finance analyst data. <\/p>\n

Internal AI tools helped analyze interview transcripts, research, and draft this post. Humans reviewed, edited, and fact-checked this post before publication. <\/p>\n

Click here for in-depth analysis of the latest stock market news and events moving stock prices<\/a> <\/p>\n

Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rocket Lab (RKLB) stock tumbled as much as 14% on Thursday after the space company said the first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":883807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[5097,28,122,101,939,2993,2994,32455,2995,932,32456,20112,147,9323,1170,1666,6480,2996,2997,923,19533,3733,32457],"class_list":["post-883806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-401k","tag-business","tag-business-news","tag-economy","tag-finance","tag-financial-information","tag-investing","tag-investment-tools","tag-investor","tag-market-news","tag-mortgage","tag-mutual-funds","tag-personal-finance","tag-quote","tag-real-estate","tag-retirement","tag-stock","tag-stock-research","tag-stock-valuation","tag-stocks","tag-suze-orman","tag-tax","tag-track-portfolio"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=883806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/883807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=883806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=883806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=883806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}