Rocket Lab delays debut of powerful, partially reusable Neutron rocket to 2026

Rocket Lab has pushed the first launch of its medium-lift Neutron rocket to 2026, founder and CEO Peter Beck said during the company’s 2025 Q3 earnings call Monday (Nov. 10).

The vehicle is now expected to arrive at Launch Complex 3 at Virginia’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, on Wallops Island, in the first quarter of next year, with its debut flight to follow after qualification testing is complete.

Rocket Lab is in the phase during which “you find out on the ground what you got right and what you got wrong,” Beck said. He explained that, though all major hardware has been built and is in final testing, additional time is needed to “retire the risks and stick to the Rocket Lab process.”

The move marks a small delay from the company’s goal to launch Neutron in late 2025 but highlights Beck’s practice of trying to meet expectations with the realities of developing a partially reusable rocket. (Neutron’s first stage is designed to be recovered and reflown.)

Beck stressed that the Neutron team’s focus is on reaching orbit rather than meeting a date.

“I don’t believe in the, ‘We’ll collect good data today, but it blew up just off the pad or halfway up,'” Beck said in an interview with Space.com in September.

“That’s not success for us. Success is reaching orbit,” he added. “It’s not common for a new vehicle architecture to reach orbit in the first flight, but that is certainly our objective.”

That remains the ambitious goal for Neutron’s debut.

“You won’t see us minimizing some qualifier about us just clearing the pad and claiming success,” Beck said during Monday’s earnings call.

The 141-foot-tall (43 meters) Neutron is powered by Rocket Lab’s house-built Archimedes engines. It features a reusable first stage designed to land on an ocean barge downrange before refurbishment and relaunch (though Neutron will perform a soft ocean splashdown rather than an actual landing on its first launch). The rocket is designed to deliver up to 28,700 pounds (13,000 kilograms) to low Earth orbit, positioning Neutron to compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9.

In August, Rocket Lab cut the ribbon on its new Wallops launch facility, which is now nearing operational readiness. Once Neutron arrives at the pad, Rocket Lab will conduct series of static-fire and wet-dress rehearsals ahead of the debut launch.

Neutron is part of Rocket Lab’s transition from small-satellite launcher to full-service launch and spacecraft-platform provider. Also part of that transition is NASA’s ESCAPADE Mars mission, which was supposed to launch today (Nov. 12) but was thwarted by solar storms: Rocket Lab built both ESCAPADE Red Planet orbiters.

Meanwhile, the company continues to book small-sat missions for its workhorse Electron rocket, with 17 new launch contracts signed in just the last three months, according to Beck. Electron is on course to surpass its annual launch record of 16; its 17th mission of 2025 scheduled to fly before the end of November.